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So the post I have been working on for hours magically deleted itself, remind me again why I thought it'd be a good idea to trust Blogger to not magically delete my post again? I knew I should have used Office, despite it being a pain in the ass for the type of post I was making.. anyway, not going to get upset over it, no need. Besides, objects don't have agents to get angry at, right everybody? Haha.
Instead of my personally productive post, I'll take this time to express how ridiculous I think it is for people to play games like FarmVille and Mafia/Dragon/Vampire/etc. Wars.
I've been wanting to get this publicly off my chest for a while now. Truthfully, and I'm going to be honest here even though this has a possibility of provoking insult within people of my family, I think it's pathetic to waste expansive amounts of time taking care of virtual crops and animals, or shooting virtual members of the mob for fake money. I see people around me, intelligent people capable of great productivity, wasting their lives playing these games for absolutely no gain. Sure, it may be as little as thirty minutes a day, but typically it's hours, if not their entire day.
In a way, it's hypocritical of me to say anything negative about these games that have taken the web by storm. I played Everquest 2 for a good two years or so, and avidly at that. I raided—the most hardcore level of play—every single night for hours on end outside of my normal play time, which was from when I woke up to when it was raid time. Regardless, I quit the game because I recognized it was pointless, an absolute time sink because I gained nothing intellectually from it that I couldn't have received elsewhere faster, and I was wasting away in front of a screen physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Of course, I took EQ2 to an extreme that I haven't witnessed in anyone with the games cluttering Facebook, but still the negative effects remain the same.
I won't accept the excuses "I play it to relax" or "it's what I do in my personal time for fun" or any variation of the two as condonable reasons for sitting in front of a screen clicking away at things that don't matter or even physically exist. There are plenty of other activities that can be partaken in for relaxation or pleasure that are also productive, sometimes even equally.
You could try reading a book, an article (of something related to news outside of celebrity gossip), a newspaper. You could walk the dog, plant a real garden, or do fun outdoor activities like hiking, boating, cycling, or whatever you would perceive as enjoyable.
Don't play a video game (outside of games like Brain Age, but even they should be played sparingly as they are still games), don't read trash magazines. They are pointless, unproductive, a waste of time, and negative to your life whether you recognize it now or not. You might actually come to discover—like I did—that if you quit now partially unwilling, you'll discover why it was so important, beneficial, and positive later on that you did.
I cannot help but mentally and often physically shake my head when I witness my loved ones partaking in these unjustifiable activities. The world is a beautiful place, more magical than any religious writing, fairytale, or website. Don't offend it by experiencing it vicariously through the internet by personal choice of laziness.
6 comments:
Video games, my third-most-favorite hobby! (Reading and writing being the first two.) I have to say that I'm very sympathetic to your "nothing to show for it" line of criticism, and that's the very same reason that I don't play the games I don't play.
But I have an entirely different reason to play the games I do play: I actually like the idea of simulating experiences that I don't have the resources, opportunity, or inclination to seek out in real life. I don't actually want to drive around killing hookers and blowing up cop cars with rocket launchers, but sometimes that's fun to pretend and so I play GTA. I simply can't run around killing aliens bent on the extinction of the entire human race, and I'd hate it if the world were such that that was a legitimate option, but it's fun to pretend from time to time and so I play Halo. And sometimes I like to get lost in a compelling narrative that has nothing to do with real life, and so I read a fiction book or play WoW or Dragon Age.
Of course, I also go for bike rides and walks in the woods and climb mountains and go to beaches. Those are also fun, and I'd do them more if I could afford it. But vidjagames is fun times, too.
Sometimes part of having fun is being unproductive.
Sometimes after spending a week studying for finals, hours on end, days after day, it's nice to relax to some semi-mindless entertainment of Call of Duty.
As long as it's not taken to an extreme, no big deal.
I agree with the points both of you made D and Samuel, but my disgust with these games is targeted at those that incessantly play them, or play them and do nothing else that holds productivity. Personally, I refuse to do anything that doesn't have a counter-productivity to it. Only on extremely rare occasions will I completely indulge in an activity that doesn't also have a gain. I don't expect everyone else to have my mindset—as that would be extremely unfair—but like I mentioned before, my target audience is those mindlessly clicking away.
Blogger usually saves drafts every few minutes. If you haven´t already, go to "Edit posts" and see if it's there. I have re-written a few times and later discovered that the original had been saved.
Btw, I COMPLETELY AGREE with your view on these games. Thank you for sharing! :)
@ Trixie Racer: What I had done was I somehow managed to delete everything in the field I was typing in, and then Blogger instantly saved the blank slate as a draft. :/ If only there was a way to recover drafts! I tried everything to get it back, but oh well. :)
Ah, cool. As long as you're OK with mindfully clicking away, then we can hate the Facebook gamers together and have a bona fide hippie agreement-fest! Hooray!
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