Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja—they own real estate in pockets and minds around the world. Sam Anderson:

Game-studies scholars (there are such things) like to point out that games tend to reflect the societies in which they are created and played. Monopoly, for instance, makes perfect sense as a product of the 1930s — it allowed anyone, in the middle of the Depression, to play at being a tycoon. Risk, released in the 1950s, is a stunningly literal expression of cold-war realpolitik. Twister is the translation, onto a game board, of the mid-1960s sexual revolution. 

What do the stupid games we play say about our culture today?

There’s a stupid game where you get to shoot all the elements on the page at the top of the article. That little feature just might keep you from reading the rest of the story, but it shouldn’t. Because, remember, the game is stupid. And you shouldn’t play it. For too long.  

And here’s a fantastic, tone-setting, quote from the story: 

Angry Birds, it seems, is our Tetris: the string of digital prayer beads that our entire culture can twiddle in moments of rapture or anxiety — economic, political or existential.

How much time to stupid games waste?

One tiny masterpiece, Plants vs. Zombies, ate up, I’m going to guess, a full “Anna Karenina” of my leisure time.

Or more.