I am sure I speak for a lot of readers when I say at some point over the past two years I have played Candy Crush Saga for too long at one time. But why was I so addicted to such a simple game? I have seen plenty of people sit on the CATA bus crushing candy on their way to class and even once saw someone miss their stop because he did not look up. Roughly half a billion people have downloaded this free game and with $800,000 per day being spent on levels King.com is not going to stop making levels.

There is actually scientific reasoning behind it when Candy Crush is being played, at least at first, all you do is win. This makes you happy and as the levels get harder and harder, winning them becomes more of a challenge. This is called variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, this theory states that if you play enough, you will eventually win, the same concept that applies to slot machines. So naturally when you do begin to beat the more difficult levels, it makes you happier and happier, but whats making you happy is the brains release of dopamine.

Dopamine  is the neurotransmitter that is the pleasure point of the brain. Dopamine is also released when people take Molly (pure MDMA.) Molly essentially floods your brain with dopamine in order to make you happier, the same happiness and chemical reaction apply to Candy Crush. Because of the rush molly gives you, people end up having “bad comedowns” from molly. After the molly begins to wear off and all of the dopamine levels come down, people get sadder in the coming days because their body does not know how to react without the high levels of happiness (dopamine.) It is the same feeling that makes you upset when you cannot beat a candy crush level.

When you are stuck on a Candy Crush level you keep wanting to play it because you are unhappy with the result, you need that higher level of happiness that can only come from winning a level.

Or maybe Candy Crush isn’t addicting at all… maybe people are just hopelessly bored or maybe people don’t know what else to do when they procrastinate. Procrastination is something that effects nearly 20% of the population so when I think about what I do to procrastinate, it includes maybe 10 minutes of checking my fantasy team, another 10 checking sports scores and then maybe 30 minutes playing Candy Crush!?!?? So maybe stats are wrong, maybe Candy Crush players are just playing it a lot due to chance, after all, correlation need not equal causation. I think it is more than probable that the reason so many people such as myself sit there and play candy crush is procrastination from whatever activity I am supposed to be doing. Since the 1970s, procrastination rates are up 21% and Candy Crush certainly hasn’t helped this issue.

So no, for anyone reading this, I am not saying Molly is equal to Candy Crush in health or addictiveness. But the next time you pick up your phone to play some candy crush ask yourself… am I addicted?

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/apr/01/candy-crush-saga-app-brain

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/mdma-ecstasy-abuse/what-does-mdma-do-to-brain

http://www.effective-time-management-strategies.com/procrastination-statistics.html