I’m not a fan of seeing a group of people sitting together while everyone is on their phones. I don’t love walking into a room and realizing I’m the only person who wasn’t prepared to spend the next several hours on Facebook as the party’s main activity. The idea of wasting away our social experience literally twiddling our thumbs instead of talking to each other is unfortunate and disconcerting. I will not blindly defend technology. There is a rampant cultural trend of screen addiction and I, for one, hope that eventually kids will stop playing on their iPads and start making lemonade stands again. This is all, however, fairly beside my point.
I am a big fan of iPhone games, of stupid contests with yourself that require you planting virtual wheat or swiping candy from left to right. You will see me playing my latest infatuation, Swipe Brick Breaker, while waiting for class to start, procrastinating homework, in meetings, and even during dinner. Sometimes, I’m playing because I’m bored. Sometimes, I’m playing because I have two minutes before I have to do something and I’m not going to be productive anyway. Sometimes, I’m playing because I’m anxious. Sometimes, I’m playing because there are too many people in the room making too much noise and I can handle it as long as I can focus my attention elsewhere.
My worst anxiety is often reactionary. Something will happen in my life that destabilizes me and I spend the next couple of days, weeks, or months, in a downwards spiral of irrationality. And yes, during these times I play a lot of iPhone games. This is not to say that I do not experience anxiety on a day to day basis. To be fair, most people do. Perhaps I am more aware of it, perhaps I just have a better grasp of the difference between being nervous and being anxious. Regardless, I have been working for a very long time to recognize it and develop strategies to mitigate its effects. My middle sister is the one who suggested games on the iPhone, as they had helped her greatly in the past. Unsurprisingly, she was right. (She’s usually right.)
Having a meaningless and unimportant task centralizes the extra energy my brain is producing. Sitting in Peirce after I’ve finished eating can be very stressful for me. Like I said earlier, when there are a lot of people making a lot of noise, it can overwhelm me. Once my food is gone, there’s nothing to ground me, nothing for me to be doing while there is such an excess of energy and stimulation around me. I like sitting in Peirce talking to friends over an extended dinner. But the part of my brain that is just a little oversensitive needs to be quieted sometimes. So I play Swipe Brick Breaker while I talk, while they talk, while we linger over bad pizza because it’s more fun to be there than to be in the library.
I often feel self-conscious being on my phone in a group of people. I look around and I see them all staring at their screens, and I don’t want to be the next person to pick up their phone. The people I hate when I’m playing a game in the middle of hanging out are reacting to the same thing that I am. I just want to point out that most of the time, for me, I’m not doing it to be antisocial and I’m not doing it because I’m addicted to my phone. I’m playing a dumb, free game because it’s easier and more fun than other soothing mechanisms I’ve found. Frankly, it works the best. And for all the people who feel the same way I do, who want to be in groups of friends, but just need something to smooth the edges, I am here to defend iPhone games. Crush all of the candy, fight all of the clans, and break all of the bricks. I support you.