Climbing the WordTwist Ladder

There are a million ways to waste time on social networks and computers in general, much to the chagrin of hundreds of thousands of employers across the nation. Heck, around the world for that matter. All of them are fun, but some of them rise to the level of an obsession.

It started out with games like Computer Solitaire and Tetris. When I was in college, the big addictive game sucking everyone's time was Bejeweled. In fact, my roommate and I even had t-shirts made up of a cartoon we saw where Jesus is drinking a Sprite and staring intently at a computer screen. There is a speech bubble coming in from the outer frame of the cartoon that says, "Son, weren't you going to get on that Second Coming thing? Also, I thought I told you to mow the Heavens." To which Jesus responds, "But, Dad, I'm Bejeweling!" That may or may not seem funny to you, but the point is, the addiction was widespread - among internet nerds, anyway. My roommate and I both qualified.

With Social Networks, however, time-wasting and obsession moved beyond the realm of the net geek and into the mass culture. Everyone has a MySpace. People have killed countless hours messaging, commenting, and in general micro-communicating via social networks since their inception.

Well, Facebook has found a way to marry those two concepts with Facebook games.

Initially, I thought I was immune to the charms of Facebook games. I am far too busy and far too mature, I told myself, to start frittering time away at Facebook's answer to PopCap.

Until my friend Brandy challenged me to a game of WordTwist. Now I can't stop playing.

Initially, it was a fun little time-filler when I had five minutes to kill. But that very quickly blossomed into a full-blown obsession with beating my college boyfriend's score. Which I did, about a day into my quest.

And it's spreading to other members of my family, as well. Now my Mom and nine-year-old niece both want Facebook accounts so they can play WordTwist.

I also noticed when I was on my ex's page leaving an unrelated comment that one of his notifications was, "Jeff is climbing the WordTwist ladder," so I think he may be hot on my heels.

I'd better go see if I can raise my score!

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