Living the Virtual Life, buying Virtual Goods

Help me here. What is it about "virtual goods"--imaginary own-ables in online community or commercial fake-world games--that leads Americans to shell out a projected $1.6 billion this year in our jobless economy?

The "I don't care about money" stance of Mark Zuckerberg as portrayed in the film Social Network has long ago been swept aside as Facebook hosts and profits from the virtual barnyard antics of FarmVille (75 million monthly active users) and a raft of other digital cosmos in which players pay real dollars for non-existent items that can get them ahead in play.  The lucrative commerce flourishing in the background behind FB profiles and friending has caused the crafty website to invent and promote its own monetary substitute, called Credits.  Facebook skims 30% off all transactions that use this virtual currency.

I read this in a NY Times blog reprinted in the actual, physical newspaper, cover price $2.00. I used scissors in my flesh-and-blood hand to cut out the article.  Just call me Stegosaurus.

One of the most popular virtual world games through Facebook is Sorority Life, explained in a post on eHow, "How to Play Facebook Sorority Life."  I could hear the syrupy everything's-a-question intonation of my newly-graduated daughter's cohort as I read the steps to success--picking your "glam" wardrobe to trot and have critiqued on the catwalk, throwing parties, shopping and picking catfights:

"Need money fast? Challenge a sister to a 'fight' and see if your skill levels are high enough to take her down. Winning a fight uses up your Stamina points, but gives you money and an increase in your Influence points, which works to make your fights and your socializing more successful."

Zynga's Mafia Wars has players forming groups of criminals who do "jobs" to get ahead, rob each other, and in one of several cities (Bangkok) can escalate (with enough energy, cash, health and stamina) to the highest level, Assassin. Actually, players can put a hit on others anyway...I was sucked into watching a half-dozen YouTube videos purporting to teach players sneaky means to increase their levels, some with 23,000 views and long threads of comments.  One blog that described Zynga's attempts to stop users from exploiting free points found even the techy author surprised at the amount of passion evoked by the glitch: "...it does help me understand that the science and psychology behind these games is very real. They are addictive money extraction machines."

Which brings me back to reality: Aren't we in a big recession?  The 9.6% unemployment rate should theoretically mean less cash to spend on tangible necessities, much less made-up stuff like fertilizer for friends' FarmVille crops. 

Virtual goods certainly make sense from game-makers' and sponsoring corporations' point of views--they get real money in trade for game advancement which costs them nothing.  This spring, 7-Eleven stores offered Farmville, YoVille and Mafia Wars points with certain fast-food purchases like Slurpees and iced coffee, points that would have cost players about $3 as virtual goods.  In June, Green Giant gave away FarmVille Farm Cash with purchases of its fresh produce.  Business-wise, it's a win-win.

But not such a boon for the players who, once addicted, are exploited.  Lured by ever-greater rewards for playing longer and, pyramid scheme-like, involving more players, victims of game addiction can become so embroiled in their virtual identities that they lose their jobs, marriages, and may even take their lives. A Korean case where parents' gaming caused them to neglect their 3-month-old baby, leading to the infant's death by starvation, received international attention.  Even Oprah-spinoff Dr. Phil has plenty on his website about game addiction, and offers a quiz to help viewers decide if they've got it.  Of course, real addicts won't be watching Dr. Phil.

Game addiction has escalated such that residential treatment facilities are cropping up, the first here in the Great Northwest.  A Nova Scotia psychologist has set up a website (with workbooks for sale) with resources for parents and adult addicts.

I'm biased on this topic. While compulsion to keep playing these games may have a physiological basis (providing dopamine highs), I have little sympathy for wasting the limited, precious moments we have on earth to embrace and appreciate the real world.  People harvesting from cartoon farms or evoking gun-barrel drawings by clicking mafia options are losing their souls to something ultimately worthless.  Even watching TV with family, while not directly engaging each other, at least involves some shared presence, some common experience.  Devoting attention--any at all!--to a virtual world simply pulls the individual away from life, from people who quickly understand they're second-priority.  Gamers know this, and like other true addicts, dismiss or rationalize it because they are compelled by the game.

Maybe it's not a physiological addiction. Maybe it's just a competitive drive gone wild.  But aggression and the need to compete are considered male characteristics, and women equal men in their devotion to online virtual-world games; one report says women spend even more time at them (averaging 29 hours per week, to men's 25).

Perhaps each gender is receiving differing types of fulfillment from its involvement, but in any case, the real and important things in life suffer.  I contend that even moderate time at  computer games could be better spent in reality-based pursuits.  Support for my view is that every self-test for game addiction I've seen includes a question about guilt over time spent online.

But when you combine lost time with lost money, you get a real problem. Virtual goods may bolster game-makers' profits, but what do they do for the purchaser, who has nothing to show for it beside a higher score?  You may say it's an investment in pleasure; we spend lots of money on vacations and concert tickets and fine wines and Disneyland, and when they're gone, they're gone, too.  But each of those experiences is real.

When your tombstone is laid, the vacations and concerts and dinners with delicious wine may add up to "he was a great family man."  But the hours spent in FarmVille or as El Cacique only compile to narcissism, mental and emotional masturbation, usually at the expense of those who long for you.

Maybe I just don't get it; if not, enlighten me. Otherwise, I'd rather pursue a virtuous life than a virtual one.

Writing Avoidance and "Social Media"

The New York Times' business section is something I usually scan and toss--until today. I kept reading articles--one on Tumblr, touted as a cross between Facebook and Twitter. Another on author Buzz Bissinger's conversion from Twitter con to Twitter pro, as in he used to despise it, now lives by it.  As psychological release during writer's angst.

Reading the first piece, my visceral reaction was: "Both Facebook and Twitter are such colossal time-wasters, and they're turning everyone narcissistic. Now there's another tiresome 'social network' to soak up the day for suckers." Simultaneously, my other brain is thinking, "hmm, better join Tumblr."

Because unlike Buzz Bissinger (right), who wrote the sports classic "Friday Night Lights" 22 years ago and, while yet to duplicate that success, keeps churning out product, I use any number of procrastination, distraction and obfuscation techniques to keep from completing projects I could be whipping out.

Do I need Twitter to jump-start my industrious spirit?  Do I need to emulate Buzz Bissinger, who Tweets, "When people call me over-the-hill I react with profane defensiveness. But maybe it is true. It crawls into my head every minute, every day" and then, unburdened, returns to his keyboard?

Um, maybe. Writing is lonely, but if there's something to say--and someone waiting for it--you really can't dither around much.  But now there's Facebook and its tempting voyeuristic sense of skulking around people's lives.  Email, the old standby, provides an hour of diversion.  Web links, another hour, and then it's time to pick up a kid, or listen to the can't-miss radio show, or start cooking, or get to the market lest we're out of milk.  I wonder if Buzz buys the milk in his family?

On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook and now Tumblr and any number of their competitors can be seen as promotion.  Authors need audiences; even more, they need purchasers.  You don't make money on Twitter, and probably not on Facebook or Tumblr, but supposedly they're required to promote the author "brand."

Truth is, for many of us, the psychological bugaboo is probably low self esteem; fear of failure; the same fear Buzz Tweets about--being told you're no good, over the hill, unworthy.

The over-the-hill idea fits because anyone who grew up with My Space and Facebook and YouTube doesn't have that fear.  Used to being "right out there," casually insulted, and publicly teased--and even more often, praised and "friended," kids just don't care about others' judgements.  Their self-esteem is so secure, so lauded, so intact, they'll easily put up a video of themselves singing off-key the 3,000th "cover" of a song, just because the world can see it. Once you can click onto a website and see yourself singing, you're famous; you feel good.  Now, just get other people to subscribe to your channel and "follow" you. No need for any authorities to validate your worth.  These are the seeds of the out-of-control egos and "look at me" mentality that are everywhere.  America's got talent, and YouTube's got everybody.

Note to self: get over it and learn some bravado from your son, who just had his 18th birthday Friday and has many, many followers of his YouTube channel.

What? Counting followers?  The world's laughing--maybe. Better check Facebook.

Sick of Facebook

Last night I had a conversation with a friend who disclosed that she disabled her Facebook account. Not that I'd noticed my friend-count decline by one; I don't even know how many I've got (it's somewhere around 100) and I don't check Facebook every day--much less send out narcissistic announcements about my fleeting feelings and momentary interests. In fact, I'm finding it more and more irritating, a time-soaker that leaves me feeling slightly soiled, in need of a shower.

At the same time that my Facebook fascination has plummeted, another real-life friend decided she had to overcome her better instincts and join, lest she miss all the family photos of grandchildren and friends' little ones only available there. Her husband had joined awhile earlier, for business reasons--to increase visibility and ultimately sales of their products.

Was it a coincidence that today's New York Times business section blared the headline, "Is Facebook Growing Up Too Fast?" Having just earned its 200 millionth member, doubling in the last 8 months, the now international "social network" is having "issues."

I could have told them that.

My son and daughter rejected me as "friends." The new format leaves me cold. And soon, real-time blasts from "friends" will make the networking site little more than a Twitter-clone. With photos. Oh yes, and some "conditions of use" that scare me. I'm considering joining my flesh-and-blood friend and de-activating.

Am I the only one who's realizing that stalking people online is not only a colossal waste of time, but actually lowers me morally? That perhaps a preoccupation with others' soap operas and fascinations and, often--breakfast foods, mishaps, momentary blues and gripes, sucks me into the world of "lushon ha ra" (gossip, unnecessary talk about others' lives) that we Jews are cautioned against?

Actually, it's worse than that--immersion in wants and irks on Facebook isn't just about voyeurism, it's about training your own soul away from the transcendent and the long-term, and toward physical here-and-now selfishness. At the top of your own page, next to your own profile picture is a box plaintively asking, "What's on your mind?" (It used to say, so-and-so is... with a blank space). That's the first thing--what's with you? The next thing is to hit "enter" so the rest of your friends all know about it. As many times a day as you feel like inserting yourself in their worlds.

If, as my husband often points out, the two opposites pulling our actions are "do your duty" versus "follow your heart," Facebook indoctrinates toward the latter. No one on FB broadcasts what he, she or others "ought" or "should" do. It's all about want. It's all about feelings. Not much about responsibility, or postponing gratification for greater good or later reward. Either it's about me, now, or you, now. Or about target ads that wiggle on the side of the screen, which, the Times article notes, aim increasingly to "engage" Facebookers, hooking them deviously into products and services via "games" and quizzes. "What's your favorite color m-and-m?" Guess who paid for that on your screen?

I joined FB because I had to. I was doing research on a book and wanted to find out the results of a study conducted at a college. The results were only available on Facebook. Under protest, I created a page. For my mental health, I try to avoid it, but messages that people post, comments and "notifications" get sent through to my email. Most people seem to have a love-hate with Facebook; in fact the Times piece ends with an anecdote by a young woman who quit but rejoined six months later due to peer pressure, confessing, "They wanted me to be wasting my time on it just like they were wasting their time on it."

Exactly. Should I retire my account? (BTW, the photo is Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder.)