Facebook, a place to reconnect with old friends; a place to stay connected with family; a place to debate any topic you like, and my favorite...a place to play online games. I play a dozen or so different games everyday before work, during naptime and after work; periodically running over to push a button in between. I started out playing Farmville, it was fun enough but not very challenging. My daughter who's now 11 took one look at the farm and said, "can I play it with you?" to which I replied, "Yes!!!!" All I could think was thank goodness someone else wants to help with the monotony of farm life, running back and forth to check the crops. At that point I'd only had a half dozen plots of farmland to grow food on and no idea how the Farmville game worked. Well let me tell you, if you want a computer application be successfull ask a child. I turned off the chat ability so no one could contact her while she played and let her have at it. Now she has over a dozen different species of animals, buildings, ponds, farm equipment, trees, benches, flowers, decorations, a graveyard and SO much more!!! Wowza baby now I want to play Farmville again, but alas, NO! It is now her farm and I can only help her to harvest her crops and exchange gifts with 'our' friends. So I content myself with Cafe world, Vamire Wars, Mafia Wars, Mobsters 2, Viking Clan, Street Racing, Island Paradise, YoVille and a few more that I can't think of right now.
Bean in the mean time has learned about spending money to make money and how hard it is to save up for something that you want. Farmville continues to teach her that she has to make some tough choices with her money, she can't buy everything she wants. A good lesson for children of today...no instant gratification...work for what you want. Who'd have thought that Facebook could teach that.
While I'm sure there are tons of online predators on Facebook (how could there not be?) I take a very real interest in my daughters 'online time' and lock the chat lines when she's on...that coupled with the internet safety classes taught at her school reassure me of her safety while playing these games. In addition our computer is in the livingroom, and it's the only computer we have with internet access.
This brings me to my daughters Christmas list: topping the 2009 list is the ever popular Nintendo DSI, not going to happen. Number one reason it's not being bought for her is the ability to access the internet wherever and whenever she wants. She's pissed, no nice way to put it...mad as a wet hen!!! The last thing I want is for my eleven year old daughter to have the ability to take photos, edit them and then post them on the internet, all from the comfort of her room, her friends room, her bus, her "fill in the blank". I also don't relish the idea of her chatting when I'm not around to supervise the information being shared with the world via the internet. So the DSI is a 'no' for me, she also doesn't have a cell phone of her own and isn't going to get one anytime soon, because they also have internet access (texting, sexting etc.) and I may be over protecting my daughter but that's my job. Love you all, have a safe and happy shopping season.