I haven’t played Minesweeper (or any preinstalled Windows game) in at least five years, and probably longer than that. Back in the days of Windows 3.1 though, Minesweeper was definitely the shit.
This would have been back in the mid- to late-‘90s when I was in middle school and my computer use was restricted to the family desktop we kept in the computer room (which is itself a laughable concept now) and that I had to fight my younger brothers for on a regular basis. This was in the days of dial-up internet when doing anything online required real planning and thought, so most of my computer use back then consisted of games and word processing.
…except that we didn’t have that many games because our outdated, clunky PC had trouble running them. So I found myself playing a lot of simpler, bare-bones games, and one of those games was Minesweeper.
My Minesweeper Story
I liked Minesweeper because it was simple to play (it was one of the first games I learned on our first Windows PC) and because it offered so many possibilities. I’ve also loved visual patterns for as long as I can remember (as anyone who’s ever seen me stack Christmas presents will tell you), and I got a sense of accomplishment from figuring out the more difficult puzzles that spring up on Expert mode. Minesweeper also brought a sense of accomplishment when you won, and after clicking and flagging my way through a particularly harrowing set of mines I found myself feeling proud and exhilarated, like I could do anything.
This last feeling was particularly memorable because winning games of Minesweeper, in a very small way, brought me back to the first game of Expert Minesweeper I ever beat and how good it felt when you clicked the last empty square and entered your initials. It was a moment that seemed to shout out, You’ve won, you’re worth something, and you can do this!!!
Maybe it was this sense of reward that led me to keep playing Minesweeper day after day in the afternoons after school before settling in to do homework or whatever else I was doing that day. If I had, say, a paper to type up on the computer, I’d first pull up Minesweeper as a kind of warm up, and usually wouldn’t stop until I’d beaten a game on Expert mode. Not only did the thrill of winning energize me to actually start work, sitting down to play a game in the afternoon provided a solid buffer between six and a half hours of schoolwork and a few evening hours of homework.
Sometimes beating a game on Expert only took a few tries, but sometimes it took much longer, eating into more of my middle-school afternoon. Sometimes I couldn’t beat a game on Expert at all and would struggle valiantly for over an hour, not only working against the game and its puzzles but fighting to gain the victory I knew I was capable of and that random mine patterns kept stealing away from me. These defeats left me feeling frustrated, bitter, and angry long after I’d finally won that afternoon’s game, suggesting that the pain of losing was more intense than the thrill of winning.
Not only was the urge to win strong, but pulling up Minesweeper as the first thing I did on the computer became a kind of habit, so that even if I didn’t consciously want to play or earn a victory, I found myself clicking on the game anyway.
There were a few other games that captured my attention this way around middle school, including Hearts, Solitaire, and Missile Command (all simple, pattern-based games that rely on consistent strategy and require little thought), but none of them lasted as long as my Minesweeper habit.
The Minesweeper Pattern Still Affects Me Today
I never went through a dramatic show of swearing never to play Minesweeper again—for whatever reason I just stopped wanting to play it, and my habits changed almost on their own. Eventually I stopped playing free Windows games altogether, and the thought of doing so now seems weird and strange to me, like when I see old people playing Solitaire on airplanes.
I’ve realized, though, that this pattern I fell into for literally YEARS as an adolescent still affects me today: After a hard day of work, if I’m tired, stressed, and maybe sweating balls after a day of dashing around in the heat, I don’t have much energy to start something new right away, and all I want to do is lie on my bed and pull out my phone.
The problem, though, is that afternoon phone time isn’t the same as real rest, relaxation, or unwinding time, and it can often leave me feeling more wound-up and mentally drained than I was before.
I’ve been doing this to some degree ever since I got my first smartphone, but it didn’t feel like a problem until I came to Japan and started burning upwards of an hour every afternoon on my bed staring into the phone abyss because I didn’t feel like getting up. In these cases, just like with Minesweeper, lying in a comfortable position and pulling up texts, emails, and social media provided a buffer between a hard day at work and whatever I needed to do in the evening.
A more disconcerting similarity, though, is that with Minesweeper I was chasing a victory that would make me feel good (“I won!”), while with texts, emails, news, and social media, I’m looking for something interesting—an article to read, a message from a friend, some insightful words of wisdom, etc.—that’ll also make me feel good. As I’ve written about countless times, it’s the same payoff that gamblers look for, particularly with slot machines and other games.
In other words, when I pull out my phone, I’m looking for an easy pick-me-up instead of a more fulfilling experience, and I don’t like that.
I find it troubling to consider that this weird habit I had two decades ago and haven’t thought about in years could be affecting my work habits today, and if I had the chance I wish I could travel back and knock some sense into my 14-year-old self: It’s just a stupid game of Minesweeper! Why are you playing it every day? Is your life really so insignificant that you need to win at a stupid free Windows game to feel good about yourself?
Here’s an even scarier thought: Maybe those afternoons were the start of my seeking rewards in the digital world when things weren’t going so well in the real one.
What Does This Link Mean?
I’ve never felt the drive to compulsively drink or use other drugs, and aside from a few years of low-stakes poker with my friends, I’ve never been remotely interested in gambling. I thus don’t consider myself to have an addictive personality, except when it comes to these kinds of electronics.
I think that on a grand scale my smartphone addiction isn’t that big, and as I wrote about last week, being able to drastically reduce my social media use after a little reflection was an extremely positive sign. It’s also been relatively easy for me to avoid the after-work phone trap most days by sticking to my creative work schedule.
If you can’t make a problem go away entirely, taking steps to bring it to a more manageable level is still an important victory and major life benefit.
As always, I also think that being aware and honest with ourselves when it comes to these kinds of shortcomings is insanely important, because at the end of the day we’re not alone with any of this, and bringing these problems into the open always helps. If you’ve had difficulties with any kind of electronics habit now or in the past, feel free to post here or message me privately—because, as always, sorting through this stuff matters, and helps make us better people.
Is it hypocritical to talk about too much social media use and then ask you to follow me? Do so responsibly…
But I Also Have a Day Job on Facebook
My Instagram where I post cool pics from Japan