the tetris effect

guys, i need a sorority life intervenion. i am a game addict, in a benign way of course. nothing like WoW or anything. nothing harmful. well except that one time err.. YEAR i spent totally engulfed in sims. david would leave for work and i would just hop on the computer and play the entire day (this was when i was deeply agoraphobic and didn't leave the house for months on end - hey what was i supposed to do with my time? READ?) and he would come home from his long day at school/work and i'd be all "oh? is it lunch time?" and realize that it was in fact nearly dark out and i had been hammering away on my game for 8 hours. i bravely faced the realization that it was time to break up with the sims and never have it back in the house. every time a new version comes out i feel that craving though. do not laugh! i get this way with games approximately once a year. mostly i will play word games like scrabble, text twist, boggle, etc. or number games like sudoku until i get what is called "the tetris effect".

"The Tetris effect occurs when an activity to which people devote sufficient time and attention begins to overshadow their thoughts, mental images, and dreams...People who play Tetris for a prolonged amount of time may then find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.[1] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of habit."

mostly this is happens with words. i will see a word and my mind will dissect it into as many other words as can be made from it. example: i have a poster that says RESPOND in my living room. my brain makes the words: ponders (BINGO!), pond, ponds, nod, nods, pore, pores, done, dones, drone, drones, etc etc). it is quite distracting as well, there are words everywhere. if i weren't such a feely person i would wonder if i were mildly autistic sometimes. so when the tetris effect starts coming on i know i've been playing a game too much and i back off. i havn't played scrabble in months and the effect has left so this week i started two new games and im sure i will exhaust the novelty of it until i start going wack a do with words. rinse repeat.