Guest Post: Are you also addicted to ‘FarmVille’?
FarmVille!
My son Matthew and I were on separate computers a moment ago, minding our own business, when he turned to me to say, “I’m addicted to FarmVille.” He described the Facebook game, which is apparently now the No. 1 application on Facebook, with 13.4 million daily users. “I find myself sitting here waiting for my strawberries to be ready to harvest,” he confessed.
My confession: I’d never seen FarmVille. So I asked Matthew (who turns 14 next week) to write me a little something about it for my blog — what it is, why he likes it and what he finds addictive about it.
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Matthew
A few days ago on the online social website Facebook, one of my friends informed me about a game known as FarmVille. I was intrigued by the notion of a game about farming on a website such as Facebook, so I checked it out. My first impression upon seeing my tiny patch of land was, “Wow, this game is incredibly stupid, and the only way to communicate with your friends through it is putting up signs on their farm.”
However, there was something I did not notice at first, but slowly came to realize, that being that the game was utterly addicting. It’s a game where you cultivate crops in a shortened amount of time with less work than real farming. You use the coins you earn to increase the amount of things you can cultivate and how conveniently you can do it. You can also increase the size of your farm.
I soon found myself increasing the area of my land greatly, trying to get myself as many coins as possible, making sure my crops hadn’t gone bad, and other remedial tasks that proved that I truly had nothing good to do with my time.
I actually became excited by what used to bore me, such as the signs. My girlfriend put up a sign on my farm that said, “I love it how you have an emo farmer,” because my farmer did indeed have a sort of dark goth look.
Soon the addiction turned to insanity, as I was soon checking FarmVille every two minutes waiting for my strawberries to be ready for harvesting. In fact, halfway through writing this, I went over to my other tab and harvested my strawberries.
Something to do in your spare time: Yes. Something that may consume you: Yes. Something that you will get bored of: No. So enjoy it, but remember to stand up every now and then, get some fresh air, and maybe try eating some strawberries.
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Fascinating. This is a kid who is also addicted to World of Warcraft. He just told me that he’s looking forward to “leveling up” in FarmVille so he can start cultivating pineapples. The arc of this game can take hours, or days, as crops are planted, grow and are harvested. So much for instant gratification on the Internet. I’d love to hear from others about what they find addictive about this game. WOW, indeed.
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