In this article, I would like to explore the enormous escalation in time folks spend playing the free of charge games on Facebook, Bebo and Myspace. On arrival into Facebook for instance, brand new users take pleasure in hooking up with old acquaintances and making new ones. Sharing an online diary with your social group seems unfamiliar 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 phenomenon called viral marketing takes over. Sooner or later, you'll notice an statement 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 new-found crop in Farmville. You could resist the temptation to go off and find out what's going on in there, but the odds are you'll be interested once seeing endless notifications from Happy Aquarium or Mafia Wars and click through to find out what all the fuss is about. And that's when they reel you in. The top games on Facebook are very cunningly designed to keep you playing, and keep you coming back to either beat your contacts superior scores on the likes of Farkle and Missile Tower Defence, or to enlarge your cafe on Cafe World and Restaurant City, or increase 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 sarcasm is begining to show, but when I comprehend what's happening to my small group of friends over a relatively brief period of time, I've got to wonder where does it finish. 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 ideal 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 planet have to enforce a prohibition on web surfing at work either on the department systems or web browsing mobiles. The argument I'm trying to get on to here is that if these folks put half the energy and dedication they invest in these games, into their family, company and job lives then surely they'd be millionaires.

And there it is. The indubitable truth that life has become so mind numbing, so overwhelmingly plain, wearying 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 happy for them if they can envision an alternative with superior rewards than these games can offer. So lets propose that our kids are showing some terrific aptitude by mastering these games and congratulate them for doing so well at something. But they can't earn a living from it. The dark fringe of this industry is the betting world and we don't care for them going away down that path surely? So lets recommend putting a portion of this time into something productive. Something which contributes to the household revenue maybe. We as parents can still exercise some amount of authority over our kids, so lets make an effort to shine a light down a new-found 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 support of charitable purposes either. I'm not some evangelist whose preaching some road to salvation here, but if you're earning fair 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 unlock a gate at this time. You decide if you choose to go through it or not. Beginning an online small business has to be one of the easiest things to integrate with personal and working life, and if I recommend an hour a day for every household member can bring in sufficient profits to produce a large difference to your life, then hopefully you can comprehend some worth in what I'm suggesting. There's just one rule to stick to at this time and that is, pick one and stick with it. There are literally millions of options out there and the online small business world is constantly fleeting from one newest expert to the next, looking for a get rich quick scheme with zero outlay and smallest input, but trust me as 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 household to make it succeed. It's not complicated, it takes a little graft, but even if you merely generate a few hundred additional dollars, pounds, euros, yen, whatever, in the month, it will bring you and your people back as one and from there, your online contacts and relatives can start to notice a sign of light through the gaming mist.

So here's to a new-found start and I truthfully wish you and your household a brighter future.