How to Control Your Facebook Games Addiction

                Ask any Facebook user what games they play on the site and you can be sure that they would come up with at least one title. That’s because these social games allow the user the freedom to play a game that is based on their individual skills while interacting with their friends minus the costs of having to purchase a game to enjoy it.

                These games are enjoyable, easy to understand and are successful at giving you a break from the monotony of work or studies. However, these applications can also be, without a doubt, very addictive and may cause you to lose time for work, studies or even sleep.

                I have been one of Facebook games’ victims, fallen prey to Playfish, Zynga, Slashkey, Playdom and Meteor Games but I have since gotten control of my so-called addiction. I realized that the key to finding the balance is to remember to let yourself play the game and not let the game play you. Of course, it also goes without saying that to be in control is to be very familiar with your games.

                Farm management games with interactive characters like Zynga’s Farmville, Slashkey’s Farmtown, and Meteor’s Island Paradise have become very popular since its inception. Players have said that these apps have been their quick relief from the hustle of their real urban lives. To manage your time in these games, take note of the time it takes for a crop to be ready for harvest. Prefer crops whose maturity takes three to four days to ripen to those that take only hours. This way, you won’t have to keep your game window open, thus eliminating the need to be glued to the screen the whole time.

                Likewise, try to keep your crops to a maximum of four types with more or less similar harvest dates. This ought to keep you from worrying too much if you miss a day of visiting your prized farm. Don’t fret too much about fruit trees and animals as they won’t go to waste.

                Food games like Restaurant City and Café World allow users to run and manage their own restaurant business without having to leave their chairs.  While a player needs to be logged in the whole time in Restaurant City to gain popularity to level up faster, you do not need to do much in it. You can log on, check the employees’ health, then leave the window open without logging off so you can go back to work. You can check on your employees again after a few hours.

                One major difference between Restaurant City and Café World is that Café World doesn’t concern you with your employees’ health as they will continue working as long as they are there. Also, Café World doesn’t require you to be logged in the whole time to generate good buzz ratings. Therefore, your main concentration is on food. You need to calculate the time needed to cook the food and ensure that it will be ready at a time that is convenient for you. Do not prepare a dish at 6PM if it takes eight hours for it to be ready. You might also want to consider which dish serves the most and make at least three of it. This helps ensure you that there will be enough food on the counter for your customers until your next visit.

                The farming game Barn Buddy presents the player with four enemies: weeds, bugs, droughts and thieves. Country Story players have to contend with droughts and thieves while Island Paradise players have to ward off thieves. With the exception of the occasional crop stealers, all the other problems in Barn Buddy and Country Story can be taken care of by your neighbors.

                Keeping thieves from victimizing you take more work and credit. You can get a dog but it will cost you. If you’re one to believe in the saying, “An eye for an eye…” then you can get even by stealing from those who steal from you. If not, just think of it as your unintended gift to them. Anyway, there is a limit as to how much a thief can loot from you.

                Mafia Wars, Mob Wars and Sorority Life are all web-based games that do not always require your intervention for us to score. You would have, however, to visit at least once a day.

                In all of these social games, proper scheduling is a skill you have to master. It will allow you to accomplish what you need to accomplish in the games that you play. I schedule mine in the mornings, then again in the late evenings after I’ve done my work.

                Most of the time, these social games are not really about beating other players to a pulp but enjoying yourself and trying to make it better. But if all else fails and you were defeated by your enemies, we stolen from or had your dishes or crops spoiled and wilted, do not fret. It’s not your life; it’s just a game. After all, you survived even before there was Facebook.