Facebook Game Addiction

Sometimes addictions come in cute little packages like the little cats and dogs in the Zynga game PetVille . Where you take your pet out and socialize with other pets that are owned by your friends on Facebook. In PetVille you get points and money to clean up after your pet, who pays you in real life to bathe the cat and change her clothing? I mean think about it, who pays you to go to a friends house and clean up the half eaten pizza and apple cores? Only in a game on Facebook can you be so aptly rewarded for such menial tasks.

Nothing is as beautiful as red, gold, blue and green jewels that line up and glitter at you in Bejeweled Blitz. Jewels that sparkle before exploding into vivid bursts of light and disappearing into the night. Pushing your score ever and ever higher. Bringing you closer to the high score of one of your Facebook friends. Always one low score away from your best game played, and always teasing you that you can do it! Do not minimize the one glorious moment when you hit your highest score this week and move a little higher on the Leader board list of faces. Knowing that there you are possibly one game away from being on the top of that board..

There is nothing ugly about an addiction that gives you a little farmer picking crops and growing acres of crops for you to harvest and sell at the market in FarmVille . When your friends on Facebook come over and happily work in your fields, harvesting your rice, wheat and corn and are happy to do so. How can this become an addiction? There is something very calming about watching your little farmer getting his hands dirty while you sit back and rake in the coins which you will spend on a new barn or a pond or maybe a few new animals. Moving ever closer to unlocking secret crops, decorations and buildings.

Then there is the socially active Sims game where you create a Sim character and let them live their busy life learning music, cooking and art. Completing quests and earning amazing gifts like household furnishings, clothing and other special rewards. The Sims Social Game is one of the newest and most popular games out.

Each game has their own unique sounds that keep you there for hours clicking away at the mouse making the magic happen. Making the jewels drop into place while the drums beat in Jungle Jewel. With the pleasant sounds in the background encouraging you as you drop the like colored jewels into a line and sending them over to fill the vacant slots in order to get a gold coin or a magic star.

Nothing feeds an addiction like pretty lights and interesting sounds and these Facebook games are proof of this phenomenon. This doesn't even attempt to question the addictions of the other games on Facebook. Notice I did not mentionFishVille or YoVille or any of the other thirty or so games I am drawn to on a daily basis.

An Addiction is the only explanation I can come up with, how else could a grown woman spend a full Saturday evening making this magic happen? I beg you to excuse me for wrapping this up, but I have my FishVille aquarium to  I need to check.