Last year, I signed onto Facebook. I did this mainly because most of my family is on it and I wished to keep in contact with them. However, once on there, I was invited to play a cool little game called Farmville. This is where you're given a plot of land and some coins and you have to make it into a large farm. It's a lot of fun and a bit of challenge to begin with - well, okay the first 30 levels are the hardest to get through. However once you're through those, you can zoom through the rest, building up crops, trees and animals like you wouldn't believe.
This game could take over lives and days and pretty much destroy any spare time you had planned to do anything in your day. If you had a nice garden, well, it died. If you planned to study something important, you failed it. If you wanted to go to the movies... well, you could always catch it on dvd later this year. You know. You found yourself putting off those things you were wanting to do normally. Me? I put in one hour a day and then closed down the tab completely; I wouldn't allow myself any more than that. I found it easy to jump onto the game, quickly do what needed to be done and then get out.
For a lot of my family, they were on there for three hours - easy - and it took over their day and lives. It drove everyone around them nuts. When they asked me to go onto their farms, I would do what they asked me and get out as they watched over my shoulder. Mum would get all worried that she missed out on something on somebody's farm if I didn't go onto a neighbour's farm... but then again, I didn't go to a neighbour's farm very much as I began to climb the levels, I just stuck to my farm and that was it.
Recently, I started to back right off on sharing what I had harvested as my Farmville page was screwing up. Prizes were showing up and everything was pretty much stuffing up to the point I was getting sick of waiting for things to be fixed by the people at Farmville.
So, yesterday, I put up a special announcement on my Facebook page. I told everyone in the public forum that I would be packing it in for Farmville and taking back my free time. I was going to be closing down my game and taking the app from my page so I can't get the game requests either. I hadn't written a single word of my books, stories or poems in months and so, it was time to take it all back and work on them again. I hadn't worked on my backyard (and it's in great need of a lot of work and repotting) and so I'll be doing that too over the next few months. I am taking back the life I've been putting off because Farmville took it off me hour by hour, day by day. I'm going to be reading more books, playing the piano more and working on my arts more too.
Today, I turned on this computer, sat down and took a deep breath; knowing that once I did this, I couldn't undo it. I went into Farmville, sold off all I could, harvested my crops on both farms for the last time, used up as many of my gifts as I could and then closed down the page. Then, I went into Facebook and removed all the apps that showed Farmville and blocked everything to do with Farmville. Now, my page looks like any other Facebook page on the net. I had a feeling of relief wash over me - so much so I almost cried. I'm free from this silly little game. I didn't know how bad this thing had a hold on me until I got rid of it from my life. Now, I have all this free time, I can get to bed earlier without having to check the computer... now that's a wonderful thing. I'll read a couple of chapters in a book instead. Until my next post, take care, keep safe and warm and remember, I'm always here. 
No comments:
Post a Comment