I understand many things in the popular culture, and I reside in some pretty far-flung corners of that culture, but one thing I don’t understand is games on Facebook. I thought Facebook was about social interaction with friends and family, not mindlessly harvesting digital vegetables for no discernible purpose.
I don’t know about you guys, but I use Facebook for only a few things. The first is to spread my opinions far and wide and engage in discussions with my friends about it. The second is to have the appearance of a relationship with family and friends that I don’t have time with. A distant third would be to sell people copies of my books.
The thing that seems to occupy most of my time these days, though, is blocking game requests and reporting them as spam.
Why would I want to play games on Facebook? At best, they’re thieves of time and productivity. At worst they are the harbingers of doom for our society. Maybe the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse are actually Farmville, Slyngo, Mobsters 2, and Words With Friends. How much good could we do in our lives if we skipped the repetitive solo gaming on Facebook?
If I wanted to play a video game, wouldn’t I rather play something a little more sophisticated and fun on a full size TV?
My issue isn’t so much that people decide to play games on Facebook. If you want to spend your day playing games on Facebook, that’s really your prerogative. I won’t judge you for it and I won’t think less of you. We all deserve to be able to turn our brains off with entertainment every now and again. All things in moderation.
I suppose my only real issue is when it turns into spam designed to encourage me to waste my time.
Sending somebody an invite to a game is liable to waste as much of their time as posting pro-Ron Paul propaganda and conspiracy theories about the President’s birth certificate. Those things just have to be refuted and argued with because of their absurdity. You’re tasking me to participate in something I want nothing to do with.
At its best, it’s like offering a hamburger to a polite vegetarian every twenty minutes. Every time you ask, I’ll continue saying, “No, thank you,” and it continues to pointlessly waste both of our time.
More than anything, it’s just annoying.
Maybe I’m just proving how completely out of touch with the problems of the world I really am. There are plenty of real-world issues that should draw my attention and ire much more than Facebook game requests. World Hunger? The War on Women? Republican Obstructionism? The Secret Service stiffing hookers?
Those social issues certainly deserve more attention than this, but I dare you to tell me that you’re not annoyed by this stuff, too.
So lets all do ourselves and our friends a favor: If we’re going to partake of the forbidden fruit that is Facebook games, we’re going to keep it to ourselves. Don’t annoy your friends with constant invitations and high scores of games you’re playing. Unless they specifically ask you for an invite, assume they don’t want the distraction.
It’s not just the time-suck factor though, either. Do you know how much of your personal date these games take in? Would it be scary to find out they’ve downloaded your buying habits and your interactions with friends?
Let’s be honest here: do you really want the makers of Risk: A Game of Global Domination to have access to your personal information?
I didn’t think so.
If you want, you can find me on Facebook here. Just don’t send me a game request…