In this article, I aim to explore the massive growth in time folks spend playing the free of charge games on Facebook, Bebo and Myspace. On arrival into Facebook for instance, latest users like hooking up with old contacts and making new ones. Sharing an online diary with your social group seems novel at first but before long it becomes second nature and before you know it you're having day by day conversations with relatives you haven't shared two words with in a year.

This is where a device called viral marketing takes over. Sooner or later, you'll notice an submission on a contacts newsfeed in relation to an achievement they have made in one of the games or applications. This ranges from winning a pillow fight to an upgrade in Cafe World or harvesting a brand new crop in Farmville. You may perhaps resist the temptation to go off and investigate what's going on in there, but the odds are you'll be inquisitive following seeing endless notifications from Happy Aquarium or Mafia Wars and click through to investigate what all the fuss is about. And that's when they reel you in. The top games on Facebook are very smartly designed to keep you playing, and keep you coming back to either beat your contacts prominent scores on the likes of Farkle and Missile Tower Defence, or to develop your cafe on Cafe World and Restaurant City, or spread out your ground in Farmville. This is where the recent generation of games come into their own. The need to keep monitoring progress over hours, days and weeks means you'll be back on at regular intervals, gaining the website owners valuable advertising revenues.

Now maybe my distrust is begining to show, but when I observe what's happening to my small gang of friends over a relatively brief period of time, I've got to wonder where does it stop. People I've known for years are glued to their computers and iphones through the day and night making certain their Cafe World game is in total order, while their own day to day life is disappearing down the sink. The volume of man hours being frittered away (pardon the cooking pun) is mind boggling and surely it won't be long before offices around the globe have to enforce a sanction on web surfing at work either on the workforce systems or web browsing mobiles. The line of reasoning I'm trying to present here is that if these individuals put half the energy and dedication they invest in these games, into their household, company and job lives then surely they'd be millionaires.

And there it is. The incontrovertible truth that life has become so mind numbing, so overwhelmingly featureless, tiresome and completely uneventful that these online platforms are satisfying a need in an emotional vacuum. So what's the answer? Do we need an answer? Well, I for one have kids and the outlook can still be optimistic for them if they can glimpse an alternative with superior rewards than these games can offer. So lets put forward that our kids are showing some impressive capability by mastering these games and congratulate them for doing so well at something. But they can't earn a living from it. The dark aspect of this industry is the betting world and we don't need them departing down that path surely? So lets propose putting a portion of this time into something productive. Something which contributes to the household earnings maybe. We as parents can still exert some degree of authority over our kids, so lets make an effort to shine a light down a fresh path.

Life is the game. You just get one life in this game and there's no going back to try again if you mess it up. What I'm suggesting is harnessing a little of this talent and putting it to good use. And not in favor of charitable purposes either. I'm not some evangelist whose preaching some road to salvation here, but if you're earning decent money, more choices become accessible. Put it this way, if you announce to your household a month long break to Disney World, do you think they'll look up from their computers?

Time to unbolt a gate now. You decide if you would like to move through it or not. Beginning an online small business has to be one of the easiest things to integrate with children and working life, and if I advise an hour a day for every household member can bring in adequate pay to yield a big difference to your life, then hopefully you can catch sight of some significance in what I'm suggesting. There's just one rule to stick to at this point and that is, pick one and stick with it. There are literally millions of options out there and the online selling world is constantly fleeting from one up-to-the-minute expert to the next, looking for a get rich quick scheme with zero outlay and minimum input, but trust me while I say, it doesn't exist. This will take a small amount of money to get going and that hour a day from you and your relatives to make it work out. It's not complicated, it takes a little exertion, but even if you just manage a few hundred bonus dollars, pounds, euros, yen, whatever, in the month, it will bring you and your folks back as one and from there, your online contacts and relations can start to notice a sign of light through the gaming mist.

So here's to a brand new start and I honestly wish you and your folks a brighter future.