Step Away From The Farm!
Posted by: Bianca Posterli
Filed in:
style
3:30PM, Sunday November 1st 2009
My Facebook page has been taken over by FarmVille updates. So-and-so just harvested their stock! Your friend just sold his wares! Help your neighbor scare off crows! And on, and on, and on. The game is sweeping the social networking world and, apparently, running people’s lives. One man gets up in the middle of the night in order to harvest his crops. A husband made his hungry, pregnant wife wait while he tended to his raspberries. Conversations revolve around FarmVille coins and experience rankings. Really?!!
To date, 62 million people have added the application to their pages in order to play, and 22 mill return daily to check in on the farm’s progress. That means there are 60 FarmVille “farmers” to every one real-life farmer. This is no ordinary fad: Business-minded people have created spreadsheets in order to figure out the best investments, musical fans have thought of songs, and now you can actually buy coins to virtually use on your farm. But the reason it becomes so necessary to pay close attention is due to the time restraints. Your crops will rot or a rogue animal could take over your farm if you’re not tending to your inches of land. (Did we mention that THESE FARMS AREN’T REAL?) As if people weren’t glued to their computer screens before, this certainly is not helping. Are you a prisoner to your farm? Do we need rehab for FarmVille? [New York Times]
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
Pinky
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 02:41 pm: [report]
I added it my page just the other day and am not quite sure how it works, lol. I’m not really in to so I won’t spend the time to play that much or even find out how…let my crops rot its good nourishment for the soil.
tattooed_redhead
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 02:55 pm: [report]
I am constantly getting invites from my cousin to play this thing. How long to I have to ignore it before she clues in?
maroon
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]
if you want to hide all those seriously annoying updates about lost cows and yellow ribbons, all you have to do is go to your home page with the news feeds, go to the right hand corner of that FV update, and a little menu will appear. click on the blue arrow for the option of hiding all farmville notifications. ahh, the sweet sound of sanity.
raqueleza
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:08 pm: [report]
Eh, I got virtual farming out of my system after a 3-month Nintendo DS Harvest Moon binge a while back.
Cat_D
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:08 pm: [report]
I have this game, but I only play for 5 minutes a day max…it’s more like something mindless I can do to take a break from homework for a minute than a serious thing.
parijat
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:10 pm: [report]
i am one of those people who is addicted to the game….sadness….
Jill
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:11 pm: [report]
I was so obsessed with farmville and restaurant city that I would get out of bed at night to farm a crop or not do a paper for hours because I was tending to my restaurant. So I ended up just deleting all the apps at once. I find I have a LOT more time now.
Jill
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:13 pm: [report]
Now if only i could kick my frisky habit…
theattack
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 03:46 pm: [report]
I am addicted to Farmville. It’s a problem. But I don’t post annoying things about it on Facebook either. I started doing it between my summer job and when classes started this fall when I wasn’t doing much of anything except getting settled into my new living quarters. Farmville is highly addictive though.
jgd1208
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 04:05 pm: [report]
*gulp*.. yea I need a 12 Step Program. However, I’ve timed my harvesting well enough that I’m no longer waking at odd hours to harvest and replant. Happy Farming…
tabby
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 04:53 pm: [report]
Farmville is a great break from my Harvest Moon hobby
relright
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 05:07 pm: [report]
yeah I play but the only things I post are when I find a lost animal. So only about once every other week or something.
And then I promptly delete them about half an hour later.
So I am part of the problem but try to not be a complete and utter nuisance
Lexington
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 05:08 pm: [report]
FarmVille is one of my wind-down tools- I go to it to kind of relax. But I also have it timed so that I can harvest when I’m free. Like, say, this weekend when I knew I was going to completely preoccupied with Halloween extravaganzas, I planted all corn. That’s not that crazy obsessive, like my sister called it. When I texted her to ask if she could harvest my blueberries because I was in class.
Tsubasa
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 05:44 pm: [report]
Mafia Wars is way better, play that instead
maystar
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 06:01 pm: [report]
Iam a victim of Farmville!! i check it about 3 -6 times a day , while taking breaks from work or from school….i like it cuase i make so much more money harvesting crops via cyberworld that it actually makes me feel better about how much i make in real life :( and No i will not join rehab
KeshKesh7
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 06:04 pm: [report]
I play WoW and I know some addicts for that, but damn, only 11 million play that regularly. FarmVille people creep me out, and that takes a lot when it comes to computer games.
MarieMacCee
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 06:18 pm: [report]
Look, people, I’m like Whitney. Crack is whack. Crack is for poor people. The sad addicts play Farmville-but the cool ones love Farm Town.
sekritly
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 06:21 pm: [report]
My mother is COMPLETELY addicted to the game. Pretty much anytime that she’s at home, Farmville is running. She may walk away from the computer to watch a movie, or do something else, but she consistently checks back in. When we’re going out to eat, or going to the store, or anything like that, I typically have to wait for her to finish something on the game.
In it, you can hire someone to do the work for you? Yeah, she made me wait until the person had finished farming her crops or whatever so she could “say thank you” before we left for dinner.
RIDICULOUS.
Jitterbugs232
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 07:34 pm: [report]
I am a farmville hater, my bestfriend’s mom woke her up and left a note telling her to please harvest her mom’s crops for the day. Its ridiculous people!!
vaiaster
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 08:10 pm: [report]
Yes, I check this game twice a day or so, but it’s like internet obsession. People are addicted to the latter, yet no articles are written about that. I agree that I don’t post status updates about it, because then, it would be a bit extreme.
And the leaving notes thing is a little odd, @jitterbug232.
lewomack
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 09:58 pm: [report]
FarmVille’s for wieners. Go Harvest Moon or go home.
Alli
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 10:05 pm: [report]
Do you actually get something for updating your status about the game? If not, why bother everyone else? I blocked the game about a month ago because my retired aunt was updating her profile 10 times a day (minimum) about her farm!
Anaxa
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 10:35 pm: [report]
eugh, I blocked that app ages ago because I was so sick of gettting updates about it in my newsfeed. I don’t care that you lost a cow!
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on November 1 2009 @ 10:48 pm: [report]
I’m happy to not know what this is. Yay!
LadieBug
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 04:51 am: [report]
I am in school and I tricked myself thinking that if I did not hook my desktop back up, I wouldn’t have distractions. I play WoW and my laptop isn’t powerful enough to run it.
Then Farmville and Cafe World come along. I now have it timed that I can check my crops at night on my nights off of school. I was majorly addicted before, but I think I have it under control now. But just wait until I’m not in school!!
Gotta go and check my crops…
Fonke_monke
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 05:48 am: [report]
farmville is ridiculous!!! I can’t undertstand why someone would freak out over fake crops! One game worth getting addicted to is ( and sounds way nerdy) Word Challenge or Who Has The Biggest Brain! With that maybe we can develop something that we really need! A bigger vocab and math skills! hahahahahahahahaha. Hasn’t anyone one noticed that everytime someone “found” somethin on farmville they are always sad? ” A sad cow,duck, sheep etc has been found by _____” People are crazy these days but like I say- what ever floats your boat !
Tsubasa
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 07:01 am: [report]
Yay I play WoW too
Been playing all night actually…
Perceptible
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 07:35 am: [report]
@Cheeese… me too!
Spitfire
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 08:52 am: [report]
I’m addicted to Facebook, Farmville & Cafe World. I never, though, post anything about the games unless it’s to make fun of myself for spending time on them.
casablancas
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 10:47 am: [report]
I don’t play Farmville, but I will tell you, sitting behind people in lectures while they’re playing it on their laptops is great amounts of fun.
BrokenOpen
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 11:07 am: [report]
Cafe World is my addiction. My husband laughs at me for it, because me and the kids are always playing. I never post anything though…too embarassed.
LostInStars
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 11:45 am: [report]
My mom is completely addicted. I was really into it for a while there, diligently checking crops. But now not so much.
My boyfriends mom once called me and woke me up, asking me to harvest her crops for her. u_u
AlisonNoelle
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 03:13 pm: [report]
Totally addicted to this game. I don’t usually post anything from it though unless it will help my “neighbors”. I’m a such a nerd.
Squidtermz
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 04:48 pm: [report]
I make my own awards saying “Joey just pee’ed on all your crops in Farmville” ... tellin ya’ it works. They’ll stop pestering you
SugarPaws
wrote on November 3 2009 @ 01:43 pm: [report]
I am also totally addicted…but LOVE it! My husband gets pissed that he can never use the computer because I’m always farming. I don’t post anything unless it benefits someone else (lost animals & ribbons.) Considering the majority of my friends are also playing, they don’t mind too much
saucy_redhead
wrote on November 4 2009 @ 12:57 pm: [report]
Hahaha! I finally started FarmVille because of family members. I added some of my relatives from 300 miles away who I rarely see/talk to and they started yelling at me about getting a farm, and once I did, tending to it! Hilarious.