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This is dedicated to a friend who always has to switch screens while online to focus on writing and, check chores on Farmville: how his plants are growing or whether one of his hired laborers is loitering around or sipping milk from his animals in the barn. It is clear which captured his attention most. Just like many of us on other online games (me on Poker) for particular reasons or darn nonsense.

I watched him maneuver his mouse on Farmville and I believe this Facebook application game will attract more players. He told me it all started with Farm Town which has quite a good graphics but slow to play and lacks better options.

It is not surprising why many are hooked into this kind of Facebook mania. It seems to be a great way to wind down, a way to play without worry of losing or winning.

It attracts not less than a million followers, not just on Facebook but I guess, also on other social networking platforms. It is a Farm Town clone from the same game developer (well, town also means ville).

Farmville is a virtual farm putting one in the torn slippers of a farmer with animals and an acre of land to tend, and later, progressing on levels, become a developer with lots of friends to hire as farmhands and trade goods with and gold to spend on additional acres of land and seedlings to plant. Reading from its discussion board, many find it very addictive and time killing that one can always give enough reasons for procrastination.

The game is good but somehow it only gives one some artificial sense of accomplishment and pride. Level after level, the excitement grows and eats one’s time away from others. But how its followers exponentially grow tells us something that it is a primordial desire embedded by our forefathers in our genes. Ask any retiree what he intends to do with his retirement fund and you will have owning a farm for in as many answers you can have. All wealth first emanated from land, from owning and developing one. And it remains one of the contentious issues even at present until the time when we start staring at the moon for a place there to spend our vacation or tend some moon-made lettuce.

It is far from realistic but it gives us an idea that all modern trade and commerce began in the farm, when humans learned to mass produce goods beyond his capacity to consume. With Farmville we are given an opportunity to live those longings on Facebook, on the Internet. But I believe if given a chance, we really intend to have a real farm where we can regularly attend to as a diversion from the digital world, from the office chair, from our routinary living.

I don’t have any discouragement for Farmville players but be wary that before we become so addicted, we must have planted something such as tomato in a used plastic bag filled with dirt and mud rubbed off from our jogging shoes.