Why Did I Do This to Myself?

ads, happiness, health related issues, humor, lessons learned, technology 1 Minute

I have successfully avoided having any video games .on my phone for several years.

But then a couple of days ago, in a moment of weakness, and for no justifiable reason, I decided to download a Solitaire app.

And it didn’t take long before I became addicted.

I would tell myself, “just one more game”, or “I’ll keep playing until I win, and then I’ll stop.” Well as you might have guessed, I didn’t listen to myself.

I would win, and instead of calling it quits, I would then see if I could win two in a row. And of course, since that rarely happened, I would then jut keep playing until I finally won again.

And perhaps the worse part of this is that since I am using the free, ad-supported version of the game, I am stuck watching an ad every time I want to play a new game. And one of the ads is almost two minutes long. It’s painful, and you think that would be enough to make me just quit right there and do something productive.

But it isn’t.

So hopefully by putting all of this down in writing, I will realize how foolish I am being, and I will just stop cold turkey.

Quick follow-up – the post seemed to do the trick. After I went back to edit this before hitting publish, I deleted the game off my phone…

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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59 thoughts on “Why Did I Do This to Myself?”

  4. Back in the early days of Sinclair Spectrums and Amstrads, we boght computer games on a cassette from the 7/11 store for £1.99 and connected said computer to the portable TV on a kitchen shelf. Favourites were the Dizzy series and Popeye.
    At that time I wasn’t working, since my children were not yet at school and pre-school childcare in those days involved a waiting list and more money that I would be earning in the hours available. While the older two were at school and the others at playschool or asleep, I would work my way through each new game with the single-mindedness of an addict until I’d beaten it.
    Eventually I went cold turkey. I realised I would either spend my days chained to a computer game, resenting the time taken to feed my family or walk the dogs, or I would have to give them up completely. Apart from a brief Tetris period on my mobile phone while commuting on the underground when I was between paperbacks, I haven’t touched an electronic game since then.

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  6. I think you did the right thing, it gives you back the power to use your time as you choose, it’s easy to become addicted to things like that, that’s what they’re meant to do –

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  7. I seldom play games on my phone, but I find when I do, they become addicting fast. I’ve deleted a few, but I still have a few on there for days when I’m bored. (Which never really happens, yet sometimes I still manage to play. Go figure.)

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  10. I don’t play games on my iPhone – the screen isn’t big enough, so I use the iPad instead 😉

    You make a fair point, though. The organisation I used to work for runs a service for gaming addicts. Believe me, you are a long way from being like their patients. Yes, patients – addiction is a form of illness.

    There is a balance, though. I find that playing a few games each day helps keep the brain cells moving around. The trick is not to let it take over your life – you already have your blog stats for that…

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    1. I guess I’m the dream client for the people that build software apps since I get sucked in so easily. But it’s been over 12 hours now, and I don’t miss it. Are there any games you’d recommend?

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      1. I’ve heard that Solitaire is good…

        It’s good to know the cold turkey is going well. I play the free version of Microsoft Solitaire. It isn’t too bad for adverts, and they set a daily challenge which includes each of the five games in the app. If you stick to that, it doesn’t suck you into the ‘one more go’ syndrome. I also do a brain trainer – the one I use is Peak Brain Training. I’ve been doing it for long enough that they invited me to be a beta tester, which gives a bit more flexibility. It has a good range of games to get you thinking in different ways. Might be worth a look?

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      2. thanks for the suggestion on Peak Brain Training. I know when I was playing Solitaire, one of the ads I kept seeing was for Elevate, which I think is also a brain trainer. I might give both of them a look… Thanks!

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  11. I am still playing Wordblitz and Quiz Planet on my phone/ipad and desktop – with 5 friends at the most and a couple of those are only playing with me, so I feel honour bound to keep going. I will just have a quick round before I write my blog… some of the multi choice questions are hilarious – which one of these was not a president of the USA Trump, Lincoln, Ghengis Khan…

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  14. I finished reading your post and realised I’d been playing…drawn in my the daily challenge! I glanced across and I’d got caught up playing and hadn’t read any of a book I’m enjoying. I observed my nuttiness and deleted the apps from my phone. Thanks, Jim.

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      1. HappyColor. It only forces ads when you launch and finish pictures. But you can watch 30sec ads to get hints, cause they always include teeny tiny nearly invisible cells. Most times I can find them, sometimes I don’t want to bother. I leave volume off and do other things till the ad ends.

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  17. Good for you Jim! Another game app “bites the dust” and is now “gone with the wind.” Oops, I am encroaching upon your weekly music posts. Better read another post with something to matter from your blather. (beware of a poet’s twist with words)

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