So I’m driving the family home from Sunday dinner at my brother-in-law’s, and my children ask me to drive more slowly than usual. When I ask why, they tell me they can’t catch any Pokemon if I go the speed limit. All of them are obsessively glued to their iPhones, each of them eager to pick up whatever digital detritus is assigned to random physical locations by Pokemon Go, the latest craze that’s sweeping the nation and in which I have absolutely no interest.

If you’re reading that thinking I’m better than that, think again. Currently, my smartphone game of choice is Marvel’s Contest of Champions, a game where you get to pretend to be famous superheroes beating up other famous superheroes in hand-to-hand combat. Prior to that, it was Star Wars Commander, a game where you build up a base for either the Rebellion or the Empire, and then you go and blow up other people’s bases. Before that, it was SongPop, a contest wherein my useless encyclopedic knowledge of popular music actually became useful as I battled with total strangers as to who could more quickly identify songs by, say, Huey Lewis and the News, among others. And there was my brief flirtation with SimCity BuildIt, a simulation where you painstakingly collect random objects in order to build an urban metropolis out of hamburgers and lightbulbs.

You get the idea.

Every time I start fiddling with a new game, I convince myself that I’m just filling the cracks of the day with some mindless entertainment. And, really, that’s how it starts. It’s nice to have something to do when you’re sitting in a doctor’s office or waiting for your car’s oil to get changed. But it can get out of hand very quickly. I dropped Star Wars Commander when I started to set alarms on my phone for when my troops would be ready. I kicked SongPop when I saw that I was using more cellular data than the rest of my family combined. I still haven’t figured out how to go cold turkey on Contest of Champions, but watching my kids obsess over Pokemon Go has inspired me that this, too, is a habit I desperately need to break.

Marvel’s Contest of Champions was my companion at my father’s bedside in the final days of his life, and it was a welcome one at that. Long hours in a hospital can be excruciatingly boring, and a fun diversion can keep you mentally engaged and distracted from the dire situation at hand. At one point, I discussed my progress with him — I told him that I was doing very well in my arena battles that week, and that I was very likely to win a four-star Star-Lord character as a result!

Dad frowned.

“How much does it pay?” he asked.

“It pays a four-star Star-Lord,” I answered.

Dad, needless to say, was not impressed.

And, to be honest, he cut to the heart of matter. These games can take oodles and oodles of time and give you the illusion of merit with rewards that only matter in the context of the game. These can feel very satisfying, but they have absolutely no value in the real world. As you focus on gathering virtual Pokemon at the school down the street, you can delude yourself into thinking you’ve accomplished something, when, in fact, you’ve really done nothing at all. I don’t think that’s always a terrible thing, as there are times when an escape from reality is welcome and worthwhile. But if you’re planning your day around where you can pick up Pokemon, maybe it’s time to end the escape and give reality just a bit more attention.

Jim Bennett is a recovering actor, theater producer and politico, and he writes about pop culture and politics at his blog, stallioncornell.com.