Words with Friends (“Words”, “WwF” or “Palabras con Amigos”) the mobile device app, has become insanely popular—so addictively popular that people of every race, religion and species are playing “words” everywhere; at home, while driving, in the gym, at their kids’ sporting events, even at church (I picked up 18 points for the word “heathen” last Sunday). The popularity of WwF was never more evident than when acclaimed thespian, Alec Baldwin, was thrown off an American Airlines flight for failing to turn off his game when asked to do so by a flight attendant. As popular as Words with Friends has become, we all do realize it’s just the game Scrabble played alone right? It’s Scrabble played on your phone or iPad or laptop, but it’s still Scrabble. The biggest difference between Words and Scrabble is that Words is played in cyberspace with supposed acquaintances while Scrabble is a board game played with actual friends who gather together to engage in communication, camaraderie and the consumption of Doritos or M&M’s.
While apps and online games have replaced the need to actually interact with real live people, once you’re engaged in a desolate and lonely game of WwF, it’s hard not to be competitive. Let’s hypothetically say someone, who will remain nameless, plays the word “conquistador” for a triple letter, double word, quadruple back flip for a total of 324 points, I, because of my poor draw of letters, can only play the word “dot” off her “o” for a whopping seven points. See, it’s still Scrabble, but now, as the popular 70’s singer Leo Sayer sang, I play “All By Myself.” For the purpose of this article, I am currently engaged in a game of Words with Friends with my wife, Julie, who is obviously not so nameless anymore. While most people might think my twenty-year career as a brilliant word crafting writer would give me an unfair advantage, those same people might also be surprised to learn I have never beaten the woman at this game of chance. However, as I organize my thoughts for this article, I will also be utilizing the Thesaurus of my brain to, once and for all, annihilate my competition in this Scrabble-like game.
Words with Friends, while highly entertaining, is just another example of our lone wolf society. When you have your phone or iPad, who needs actual friends? Our children have been playing computer games by themselves since they emerged from the womb. Nintendo DS was a favorite of our girls when we embarked on a road trip, when they tired of television, when they went to the bathroom or when they simply desired some down time. While the games do greatly enhance their hand/eye dexterity, it left them with thumbs the size of a corn dogs. Nintendo transcended into Play Station and Play Station eventually found its way to the bottom of a dresser drawer with the emergence of Wii. Fortunately, Wii did encourage some social interaction with family and friends, however once it was determined that Wii could also be played alone, my wife became a Wii widow. Speaking of my wife, she just played Quoz for 589 points. In what language is Quoz, a word? Bequoz I think she’s cheating.
Back in the day, the neighborhood kids (Clifford, Terry, Felicia and Angela) and I would gather together on a rainy day in Cliff’s sunroom to play board games for hours on end. When you’re a “gamer” or “board playa” in kindergarten, the games we rocked included Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land and Hungry Hungry Hippos. Granted, we did live a little fast in those early days. Games become much more interesting when you’ve got something riding on them. Not money of course, because a six-year old can’t really get his hands on cash, no instead we would stake a game with Oreo, Chips Ahoy! or Nutter Butter cookies. Playing board games was a chance to develop our social skills, which was crucial to our adolescent development. I recently read about an eight-year old child in Florida who proclaimed her best friend was her Droid cell phone.
As my underground game gang matured into our tweens, our board games of choice naturally evolved along with us. Me and the boys (Jeff, Derek, Troy, Luis and Mark) moved our high stakes games into the backyard fort at Jeff’s house. It was really his older brother’s fort, but he allowed us to rent it for $2.00 an hour because he had taken up heat lamp gardening. Chris became quite the businessman selling his extremely popular and odiferous plants to the neighborhood teenagers. Games such as Clue, Masterpiece, Life and Yahtzee were now our thrill of choice. Of course the stakes also matured and the grift became items such as firecrackers, cassette tapes and Playboy magazines (“for the articles”). Our conversations also moved away from topics such as cartoons to sports, girls and girl sports. Julie just played “dominatrix.” Let’s see, with her three double boggy letter and four triple word squares she just scored 713 points. Fortunately for me, I was able to follow that weak play with the word “dirt” capitalizing on her “t” for a nifty 11 points.
Perhaps the Godfather of all board games is Monopoly. Monopoly, a game of high stakes real estate, requires a player to exhibit guts, strategy, negotiation and a knack for getting out of jail free. Monopoly marathons in college were commonplace. Often following a wicked fun night of partying, we would commence a rousing game of Monopoly at the FRAT house around 2:00 a.m. and go until dawn. Assuming we could convince a few Sigma Chi little sisters to join us, the stakes became clothes and it was mandatory to down a shot of Jäger every time someone passed GO and collected $200. Oddly, I remember losing my pants when I landed on Park Place one too many times, but I was usually the last one to lose my dignity. Of course, there was more to the game than alcohol consumption and naughty voyeurism. There was deep, meaningful dialog on topics such as Reagan-ism, the Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird rivalry and of course, MTV’s hair band rotation. Julie played on my word “dirt” and her word “dominatrix” and scored 666.5 points in two different directions with the seldom-used word, “ambidextrous.” I strategically countered with the word “farter” using six letters for a total of five points. How did that happen? Score – Julie 1,594 points and Mike 26.
I’m not saying that there aren’t positive aspects of a game such as Words with Friends (or Mobile Scrabble as I like to call it) which does require that the participants utilize their brains far more than say Brick Breaker or Bejeweled, but my question is where does it stop? Will our children’s children eventually engage in youth sports online instead of actually going to a park or field to participate in a game of soccer, softball or lacrosse? Will virtual swimming take the place of swim team? My fear is that our society will become a bastion of overweight, socially inept computer hackers that’s can’t communicate in the real world. We’ve got to force ourselves to promote meaningful interpersonal interaction and it might start with a hard copy board game Darn it, Julie just played the word “gortex” for 214 points and I’m left with five “U” letters, a “Q” and a “Y.” I quit this stupid game and am going to the closet to find Apples to Apples, Balderdash or Sequence. Hey kids, “Daddy’s done working and it has just become Family Game Night. Tell mom to “put down her iPad and join the fun.”
Q. Dandelions have invaded my lawn and are taking it over. I’ve tried pulling them up by the roots but they only come back. The spray on Dandelion Killer just wilted them a little bit. What do I do next?
