I started playing Texas Hold-em poker on Facebook a few weeks ago, and quickly accumulated over $260,000 of imaginary money. It took hours and hours of sitting in front of my computer, playing hand after hand, and for really, no point whatsoever. I love the game, but I prefer to play it with friends in real life, sitting around having a few drinks, and generally being a social animal. So, after two or three weeks of it, I decided to give all the pretend money to a friend and remove the application, with the intention of trying to spend my recovered time on more worthwhile pursuits. To a certain extent, I feel like I've succeeded in that goal.
However, it just made me think about the millions of ways we are given to waste our time instead of doing things that would more productive. It's as though we're being presented with newer and shinier things, faster than we can get bored of the old ones, although we do get bored quickly of them. Facebook itself is an excellent example of time wasted, and the applications they offer, usually through third party creators, take us away from living real life, and eat away at the short time that we do have. Western governments love this shit. Why spend the time thinking about what's wrong with society, like why is your heart attack going to bankrupt your family, or why did the banks get bailed out again? They prefer you to spend your time conducting a mafia war in cyberspace, twittering to Ashton Kutcher, or creating cartoon pets. Most of these games and distractions are designed to have no end. They just keep going on and on and on, and then you're dead and you did nothing with your life. I don't want to end up on my death bed and be worried about what's going to happen to my pets in Pet Society. Neither should anyone else. Maybe the Luddites have it right. Technology is seriously mismanaged if it make us lose sight of the life we have, and leads us to focus on a life that we don't.
