Thanks to Erik (again) I was pointed to this essay on Cultivated Play: Farmville by A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz in MediaCommons.
The essay starts by asking why Farmville (a plug-in game for Facebook) is so popular. Why is harvesting virtual pumpkins (lots of clicks) fun for Facebook users? Patrick argues that Farmville is popular because we are polite people who want to be good to each other,
The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness. We play Farmville, then, because we are trying to be good to one another. We play Farmville because we are polite, cultivated people.
Liszkiewicz goes on to argue that Farmville resembles work, but it is Zynga (and Facebook) that benefit. This game takes advantage of our natural civility and sense of neighborly obligation to exploit us. He ends up calling ita “sociopathic application” because it exploits our sociability to control us.
As someone who quit Facebook in a huff over how they were exploiting my information I can’t play Farmville and therefore I’m not sure that it has no redeeming qualities. I do, however, agree that we must examine what we are doing and quit those social sites that exploit us.