Words With Friends - Why?
Introduction
Many of you have probably played, or do play, the Facebook/Zynga game Words With Friends, or currently Words With Friends 2. If so you'll know all about it, if not, well it is like a shortened version of Scrabble .. smaller board, less tiles.. and it can be addictive. I currently have 17 games in progress and that doesn't include the Solo Challenge.
Like most of the Facebook/Zynga games there are incentives and goals to achieve, and extras to purchase to improve your chances of winning if you are that gullible. I admit the speed of the games and the fact you can play against multiple opponents so that you always have a turn coming up while waiting for others to play is appealing. I was always a fan of board games like Scrabble and Monopoly but they did sometime take hours, and now there are quick short versions of both of them and others .. and online even.
This is just another example of the need for our society to make everything faster and easier, catering for busy lifestyles and shortening attention spans. Is it good or bad, that's not for me to say, but this poem expresses my opinion.
Words With Friends - Why?
Words With Friends, the latest craze
Or a shortened Scrabble clone
Reinvented for a fast paced society
Developing short attention spans.
Short and sweet now the norm
With almost everything we do.
Internet inoculation,
Time is money, don’t waste it.
Recommended
Have the information on tap, Google it!
Find an answer to everything, or nothing.
Reading is changing - goodbye novels, welcome flash fiction.
Is intelligence suffering? Time will tell.
Epidemic of impatience spreading,
No more taking time to smell the roses.
Distractions all around us, multitask or perish.
Some words no longer valid words, or so it seems,
While others are accepted that appear in no other dictionary.
How does an old dog learn new tricks?
Yesterday just seems so far away.
A typical Words With Friends game
John Hansen
© 2019 John Hansen
