Posted on 2010-05-31 08:00:00
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mobile phones, Addiction, Words with Friends
As described earlier, I am now owner of a Apple iPhone. So far nothing new. The thing which was new for me is the portability of addictiveness.
The first, and until recently, last pocket computer I had was a Palm III which was great: Two AAA batteries which lasted months, brilliant input method, simple screen (plus a software development kit available, which ran under Linux and FreeBSD). It lost its attractiveness when after a cold day outside it didn't want to turn on anymore and lost all the contents in it. Oops.
Fast forwarding to twelve years later. In the mean time I've only had simple telephones and faster more capable computers, nothing which stands in between or merges the capabilities of each other.
Long term addiction to computer games has so far for me been limited to playing MUDs in the early 1990s, after that it had not touched me much. True, I've played games like Bejeweled on Yahoo! Games for a couple of afternoons, but the realization that I wouldn't get anywhere near the global Top 1000, let alone the global Top 10, nor that anybody would care me being there, that made me give up pretty fast. The other factor of success is that my machines were not running MS Windows nor MacOS/X and therefore successfully limiting the amount of addictive programs capable of running on it.
But with the purchase of the iPhone that layer of protection had gone and now I've wasted most of the train trips towards and from work and the walking towards and from the trainstation with looking at the little screen and wondering when the next opponent in Word with Friends (a non-realtime multi-opponent version of the Scrabble game) will lay their word so I can place my next set of tiles.
I couldn't remember what was happening between the moment I stepped on the train in Townhall till I got off at Caringbah. And I could't remember what was happening between the moment I started walking at the station till I was home. There are two big roads to be crossed and I couldn't remember if the light on the crossings was red or green when I crossed. Etc.
That was my state of mind until my wife started to play the game on my iPhone and the game wasn't fully mine anymore. Is it the being dragged back to reality? Is it jealousy? I don't know but I'm glad she did.
Except that she now owns my iPhone with her games of Words with Friends from the moment I'm back from work till we go to bed. Until the next addictive game comes up on my iPhone, then it's all mine again.