The Women of Farmville
ABCs "Good Morning America" ran a story this morning about the epidemic known as Farmville. For those of you as blissfully ignorant as I, Farmville is an on-line game where players manage farms, crops, animals, etc. and earn virtual coins for harvesting crops, and so on.
Apparently one can now pay REAL MONEY to earn virtual coins, too. And experts estimate about 15% of players, or 12 million people, do pay their hard-earned cash to somehow "get ahead" of the fierce competition in the virtual famer's market. And of course, this is making the gurus behind Farmville filthy rich ($450 million this year).
In past blog posts, I have come down particularly hard on young men's obsession with gaming. While I do not back off of those comments, it appears I must now address 40-year old women, as well. According to the GMA Reporters, the majority of Farmville players are women in their 40s. And as with all video or computer-type games, many women are becoming addicted and spending hours upon hours clicking and staring, staring and clicking their lives away.
Consider this comment from a former Farmville addictee, Marianne Thomas:
"I played in the morning, in the evenings, all during the day. I thought about my crops all the time. I gained probably about 10 pounds. I quit going to the gym, quit doing my chores, ignored my house," she said.
Now this is serious. Do we really wonder why our nation's economy is tanked? Young men sit in their cubicles on company time playing games, then go home and play more games, often involving their children in the GAMING IDOLATRY and justifying it as "quality time." And now we have 40-something women (READ, wives and mothers) ignoring their homes because their fake crops need some fake fertilizer so they can earn some fake money.
Our nation's people are losing their minds! And many Christian women also engage in the Facebook / Farmville phenomenon in close-to-idolatrous proportions. Christian wives and mothers, when is the last time you actually timed or tracked on paper how many hours you spend clicking and texting and clicking some more?
Ignoring your homes, Christian women, is tantamount to neglecting your primary God-given duty (Prov 31:27-28; Titus 2:5).
Does it strike anyone as odd that Christian women are now spending their money, time and talents managing a virtual farm in order to earn virtual money, all the while neglecting their husbands and children? It should alarm us in the church to the point of repenting in sackcloth and ashes, because what I just described to you is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the Proverbs 31 woman, who does real work with her real hands, planting real crops in real fields and plying her real wares in real markets in order to bless and enrich her real husband and children.
Don't take my word for it. Stop right now and read Proverbs 31:10-31. Seriously. Read it.
Women of the Lord, you claim the Name of a Savior who said people would given an account on the day of judgment for every idle word spoken (Matt 12:36). Today the implications of Jesus' words must obviously include people also giving account for every frivilous moment spent clicking our lives away in virtual world.
The psychologist's recommendations on GMA included tracking the actual amount of time you spend on-line, as well only having one computer in the home and placing it in the family room. But friends, bad habits cannot simply be ditched, they must be replaced. This is why Paul teaches Christians to "put off" sinful practices and "put on" godly ones (Eph 4; Col 3).
May I humbly suggest some productive alternatives to Farmville?
- Go plant an actual garden that will benefit your family and neighbors.
- Given that FB and Farmville supposedly "connect" us, why not involve your neighbors and children in the gardening process? Face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder, weeding the beans and picking the corn. If we did more of this, we may actually have opportunities to truly get to know another person, or to speak to others of the things of God.
- Read your Bible.
- Teach the Bible to your children.
- Sing some old hymns with your family. Don't know many? Go buy a hymnal and get busy!
- Read a biography of an old saint of God and then teach your children about how God used that person.
- Spend your web-surfing time for God's glory. Log off Farmville and log onto www.persecution.com or www.4truth.net. With so many God-honoring options on the internet, why waste time?
- Pray.
O God, rescue our wives and mothers from a life of folly and frivolity. Give them strength to log off for Your glory and the good of their homes. Transform them from Farmville addicts to Word addicts. In Jesus' Name, amen.
Read more about the Farmville analysis here:http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/facebook-met-farming-80-million-play-farmville/story?id=10608972&page=1