I clicked on the picture and it took me to an article titled "Getting Real" by Elyssa J. Kirkham. The article is about a girl who played tons of video games but made a realization she was missing out on real life by playing too long in the virtual world.
This article hit me like a ton of bricks...and I saw it as a chance to make a change.
This morning I went in and deleted ALL of my facebook games!! That might not be amazing to anyone who reads this...but it was a HUGE step for me!! I have wasted SO MANY hours of my life playing FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille,Fluff Friends, SuperPoke Pets, Treasure Isle, Zombie Lane, Mafia Wars...etc. As soon as I read this article, I just started deleting stuff! I was scared that if I waited until after church, I wouldn't have the courage to do it later. I am still kind of in shock that all my games are gone!
It was taking me forever to get my homework done each day because I would take a "5-minute" break to play my games and would end up wasting an hour or more. I was not interacting with my family as much as I could have either. The games start out only letting you play for a few minutes...but as you advance in levels, you get more "energy" and your playing time increases. I have tried to cut back or quit before, but I always found some way to justify keeping the games open and available. I hope I don't cave and reload one of the games! I really hope that I can fill these hours with something more productive!
(Fast Forward two months... Today is really Sept 27, 2011. I am working on getting our blog up to current and I always backdate the posts to when they really happened. I am so excited to tell you that I only missed my games for about three days!! After that, I didn't miss them at all!! School this semester seems to be going so much smoother for me...and not until I came to writing this post today, did I realize the connection. Even though I have nine credits this semester, my school work doesn't seem to take up so much of my time! I am so grateful for this article and that Heavenly Father helped me to kick my bad habit! It is so amazing that the small act of deleting my facebook games could have such a huge effect on my life! I have more credits this semester than I have for the last two semesters but I feel so much better this semester...stress-wise...it is amazing! I am so, so grateful!!)
2 comments:
Awesome! I don't use many fb apps. Andrew plays games on the phone constantly though!
You are my inspiration! When I heard the conference talk about how we spend our time, I felt prompted to do it, but I slipped back into Cityville and Bejeweled Blitz. I am going to delete it now so I have no more temptation! Thanks, Melissa, for being such a great example and inspiration! Love you!
Luana
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