The days of Kitty Collector, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and Candy Crush are over! Well, probably not. But why waste precious time feeding cats when you can breed dragons?! I know what you’re thinking, “Why would I bother playing a game that’s from four years ago?” Trust me, I know, this is something I’m not proud of. I mean, who really has the time to spend hours breeding dragons? But I’m telling you this app is making a comeback (or maybe not…), but regardless of what app you’re playing right now, there’s always the risk of it becoming an addiction.
Here are the six stages of becoming addicted to an app.
Step 1: Curiosity
The initial attraction to playing any game is curiosity. We want to see what all the fuss is about and why everyone wants to play. So, naturally when your roommate insists you download a game that is all about breeding dragons, you’re going to feel a bit curious. Even if you downloaded the app at some point in high school but never actually played.
Step 2: Confusion
The curiosity soon evolves into confusion because even though your roommate is on the phone for a solid two hours talking about the game with their friends from home, you just can’t understand what the point to DragonVale is. You’ve been playing for a week and all you have is four dragons (all named after the elements), and no money to buy cool habitats or food. Meanwhile, said roommate is talking about buying her fourth island and the difficulty of breeding an Andromedan Dragon (whatever that is).
Step 3: Denial
Suddenly you have an urge to play the game all the time because you are determined to figure out what is so fun about this app. The more you play, the more dragons you breed and suddenly you find yourself having an urge to play all the time: before you go to bed, in the middle of a boring lecture, even walking on the treadmill. But you don’t like the game or at least that’s what you tell your roommate when she smirks at you like she’s accomplished some challenge. You can’t give her the satisfaction.
Step 4: Acceptance
Even though it was hard to finally admit to yourself that you play DragonVale regularly, the denial turns into acceptance and you and your roommate start to discuss the dragons you’re trying to breed at the common room table. Your suitemates are definitely judging but they just don’t understand.
Step 5: Obsession
When the obsession creeps in, you are totally aware of it but do you care? No, there is nothing wrong with spending most of your free time on your phone trying to breed the Amethyst Dragon. Then you realize this is probably why you’re single on Valentine’s Day once again, which bothers you for about five seconds until you brush it off. My Rose Dragon is my Valentine.
Step 6: Aggression
The worst is when you accidentally breed a 48-hour Dragon three times in a row. Do you know how many other dragons you can get in that time frame? Well, a lot, but it doesn’t matter because you just wasted 144 hours to get THREE Rainbow Dragons. When things like this happen the aggression comes out.
We've all had a game or an app that has become an addiction. Maybe it was angry birds, Flappy Bird, Kim K's app or maybe it was even DragonVale. Regardless, we can all relate to the confusion, denial, and even aggression that comes with being addicted to a stupid game that we waste our precious free time on.
