Past Midnight (1.00 a.m.)
Phone rings
*Ring ring*
(After what feels like an eternity of waiting while chewing my nails anxiously)
Friend (sleepily): What happened? There better be a good explanation for waking me up.
Me (with great trepidation, might I add): Yo, I swear I wouldn’t call unless it was a real emergency but could you quickly send me a request to unlock the next episode of Candy Crush? Please?
Friend: …..
Me: Hello? Are you still there? Are you sen-
*Call ended*
As you can imagine, I did NOT get my request to unlock the next episode fulfilled. But boy oh boy, did I get a earful from my friend the next day!
I think I discovered the addiction that is Candy Crush Saga around 2 years ago. And ever since then, my life has revolved around crushing the little nuggets of colourful candy, getting those combinations right, collecting boosters and begging other “crush addicts” to send me extra lives or moves. And believe me, it takes a toll on your mental health. I mean there’s only so many times one can replay a level and not clear it. Even with the colourful bombs and the best of moves. I have felt defeated and purposeless at the end of months of trying to clear these brain-draining levels.
It started with the need to download a game on my new phone just so I too could partake in the world of Apple/Android app store-bought games so I didn’t have to depend on Facebook to play it anymore. Soon, I found myself intrigued. Obsessed, some might say. I spent hours in Uni hiding behind my bag, so precariously propped up in front of me, just so I could crush them damn candies. They soon became a form of escape from reality. The moment I wanted to block someone out, I’d pick up my phone and find myself impatiently waiting for the orange “loading…” screen to shift into game mode.
The maelstrom of emotions I would experience when I cleared a particularly difficult level or failed to do so was enough to pass me off as Bipolar. And I say this with the utmost confidence given that I am a Psychologist. I know my symptoms. PMS, pfft. Move over girl. You haven’t experienced torrential emotions until you’ve played this game. The little voice in my head told me that I needed to stop. Not playing, but obsessing. I was at it all the time. I’d avoid taking calls if it meant it would disrupt my game. I would hide out in the bathroom till I had used up all my lives, all at the cost of experiencing pins and needles in my legs. I started receiving death threats in the form of messages from my friends who swore to disown me if I didn’t stop sending them requests (I fixed that soon enough- now I only send them to my “Candy friends”). My mother called me “crazy” on quite a few occasions. My cousin tried scaring me out of my obsession with an article about a man who sustained chronic tendon injuries after playing the game incessantly. But I couldn’t be moved against the game.
You know the feeling when you have a huge exam coming up and you feel like doing everything but study? Candy crushing is all I did with my study time. Even moments before the exam, on my way to Uni, I would be trying to crush that one last candy encased in jelly, convincing myself that if I cleared that level, I’d do well in my exam. That did it. I realised I was in a heap of trouble.
At this point, you would like to hope that I had seen the light and set myself straight. But no, I just vowed not to play it during exam time. And that felt like the first step towards recovery. Some recovery. It lasted all of 4 hours (my lives had been refilled by then, you see).
The thing is, that we are so blindsided by technology and what it has to offer that we fail to see what is right in front of us. Opportunity. The best of its kind. We sacrifice our social life to our cyber life. One that is “virtually” non-existent. Get it? (I hope so. It sounded witty in my head!). I know I did. But opportunity presented itself to me in the most innovative manner. I was starting to realise the outreach this game had. I would find myself looking out the car, auto or bus only to see someone else crushing candy in the adjacent vehicle, tongue set firmly between their teeth. I would see people sitting in restaurants or pubs or public places and crushing the damn candy while their family and friends stared at them dumbfounded and at a complete loss for words.
That is when I thought that maybe there is more to this phenomenon than meets the eye. As a psychologist, I tend to analyse things a lot. Not really, just felt like the cool thing to say. But in all seriousness, having studied about egos and defence mechanisms in great detail, I came to the realisation that it is perhaps the new age defence mechanism which has evolved as the world, technology and man himself has. Introspection led me to the epiphanous finding that most of the times I felt the burning desire to play the game was when I wanted to avoid situations I didn’t know how to deal with. Studying for an exam I knew I’d never complete reading the portions for, sticky situations involving picking sides in fights with friends, avoiding awkward conversations, yada yada yada.
Whether this is a good or bad thing, is subjective to the context in which said crushing occurs. I recommend exercising extreme caution before you declare that a loved one is trying to escape reality. People bite too. In all fairness, you have your Counter Strike and I have my Candy Crush. So don’t judge me. We’re all a part of this vicious cycle where we try finding ways to escape from our reality be it beating Luigi in Mario Kart, shooting the bad guys, completing missions that involve breaking an entry in GTA or combining a striped candy with a wrapped candy to clear the board.
I admit it, Candy crush is my escape once in a while. And I am okay with it. But I will say this, too much of anything can be a bad thing and I henceforth, pledge to spend only a few minutes on crushing candy in day (alright, maybe till my lives are over) and a few minutes more talking to my friends and family.
Having said this, level 823 suckers!!!!
Teehee.
P.S.: This piece was originally written 4 years ago. I am now on level 4352 and nowhere close to overcoming my addiction.
