Flappy Happy

ENTERTAINMENT: A new app dominates App Stores.

By Jared Kanouse, Staff Writer

Flappy Bird is a simple game. Users tap the screen to make a bird flap its wings and fly upwards. This bird flies horizontally to the right and through sets of green tubes. Each time the bird passes through one set of tubes, it receives a “point.” The goal of the game is to get as far as you can. The frustrating part comes with the bird’s fall. Not tapping the screen fast enough, hitting the side of a tube or getting caught in the openings between the two tubes all lead to the bird falling to the bottom of the screen. This means that the player must now start the entire process again.

While this game is relatively simple in controls and goal, it has created quite a buzz around both Poly High School and the entire country as a result of its difficulty. Multiple Twitter accounts tweeting about the game generated hundreds of thousands of followers each. However, the game’s popularity does not necessarily reflect positive reviews. Poly student Maddie Tovar (10) finds the game frustrating. “Flappy Bird upsets me,” Tovar said. Another student, Rosemary O’Neill (12), said, “I have it but I hate it.” The difficulty of the game often aggravates players to the point of violent and impassioned reactions.

Flappy Bird represents a problem to society. There is nothing productive about the game. It has no story line. It has no progress. It doesn’t speed up over time. Yet it has still taken over many people’s lives. People are addicted to technology and this game shows just how weak the human mind has become. Children in school refuse to work in classes and instead spend the hours playing on their phones. Our happiness now depends on one pixelated bird—what does that say about our society?

Photo courtesy

of www.cultofandroid.com