The Bona Venture

Issue date: 3/12/10 Section: Features

Image courtesy of Facebook.com

Just how addictive are Facebook games?

While being interviewed for this story, Morgan Mack, freshman English major, pulled out her laptop and checked on her Farmville account.

Mack had a long list of games that she plays regularly, including Farmville, Petville, Mafia Wars, Café World, Castle Age and Happy Aquarium.

"I'm not as bad as I used to be. I used to play a lot," Mack said.

Facebook offers a variety of games to its users. In Farmville, a popular game that, according to gamasutra.com, has 32 million daily users, players control a virtual farm, where they can grow crops, earn money and expand.

Other games allow players to raise virtual pets or manage their own pretend businesses. Some, like Castle Age, put players in a fantasy world where they can go on adventures. All seem to share certain qualities: they are free, time consuming and hook their players.

Even after cutting back, Mack estimates that she spends, on average, 45 minutes per day playing Facebook games. She feels more encouraged to log on when her friends send her requests or gifts from their accounts or when the games run promotions.

"For St. Patrick's day, (Farmville) is having a 'pot of gold,' so you have to collect as much gold as you can, and you get prizes," Mack said. "When those happen, I go on more often because I want the things."

Mack doesn't think the games do much harm.

"I don't like to spend too long on them because if I do, I get into them hard-core sometimes. Then it's really bad because I will spend hours not doing anything but playing, like, Farmville, which is the most pointless game in the history of the world," Mack said. "But if I don't pay attention to them, then I don't play them."

Clint Lienau, senior journalism and mass communication major, quit playing Facebook games at the beginning of this semester. He used to play Warlords, Fish World and Zoo World.

"They were just kind of getting tedious, and they were interfering with work," Lienau said. "I had other things I could be doing with my time."

When he played actively, he would log on for about 10 minutes per game every two hours or so.

"I miss them a little bit, but I'll live," Lienau said. "I definitely have more free time."

Joyce Joyce, a sociology professor, thinks that, when played excessively, these games may cause problems.

"You're sort of removing yourself from reality," Joyce said. "There are some studies that are starting to suggest that people are becoming more and more isolated, that you are becoming less social by dealing only in the virtual world."

On the other hand, the games may have social benefits.

"There are also some studies that suggest that those games themselves are considered a community, and that is where people are more comfortable, and they are actually forming social relationships," Joyce said. "Another way of looking at it is that being a virtual community."

Whether or not they take over your life, Joyce said, depends on the individual.

"In some ways, this just makes it easier for people who tend to be socially isolated to become more isolated," Joyce said. "But at the same time, there are some people that realize that it's just fun."

Lienau agreed that the games could be a fun distraction, as long as they don't interfere with daily life.

"Always in moderation," Lienau said.

e-mail: westej090@sbu.edu

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