Diary of a Sad Addiction

It all started when an acquaintance from church who is no longer even on my friends list (no idea where she lives now), sent me an invitation to cook and create fun recipes in my own cyber kitchen.  Wow! What 's not to love about that?  (However, I must say I thought I would really be creating real and usable recipes.)  But I joined none- the- less and thus began my downward spiral toward online gaming addiction.  I didn't use money, I didn't use drugs, but what i did use was my time.  Countless hours upon hours of used up time.

The Hook

You start out with this tiny little 3 stove kitchen and you have money that they give you like, a thousand dollars.  You cook burgers and guacamole, and even a fruit plate.  As you successfully cook the quantities needed you are magically gifted with more money, and you unlike more recipes that give you more money, and more unlocked recipes.  It is so fun!!!  You then simply begin to improve upon your little kitchen, and then you being to recruit other people.  You get your own family involved, they get hooked on the fun of the whole thing too.  Then the more your social network grows in the game, the more your rewards and the faster you advance in the game.  

Advancing

 The addiction, I discovered in TIME magazine, is seriously and deliberately built into the game.  Zynga Corp, the people behind a big series of games for FaceBook, literally hires a psychologist who counsels the engineers on how to make the game addicting to the user.  They make it fun though.  You win all kinds of special prizes and privileges.  You make your friends happy, and they become real good buddies. You are one big happy family and you are tight with each other.  I was even the master of my husband and daughters kitchens.  I did their kitchens to further my own play.  And further it I did.  I was at the top of my friends list and around 100,000,000 it cafe coins.  You name it, I could buy it.  I was able to have so much game, that I was waiting for Cafe World to catch up with me..... A pretty heady feeling.  I appreciate that CW was in it for their own good.  They are in the business of making money.

The End

When my life revolved around the cyber kitchen, when I spent countless hours working on three horrid kitchens and groaning every-time I had to go through the endless steps of cooking, and listening to my family prod and encourage me to break the endless cycle of addiction, I decided to close it out cold turkey.  Ha, get the pun.  Ta ta Cafe World, may you never darken my computer screen again.