Mother Kills Baby For Crying While She Played FarmVille

It’s not often that I get upset by the news we cover on AllFacebook but today is an exception.

A young woman from Florida has just pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of her baby son because he interrupted her FarmVille game with his crying.
 
Alexandra V. Tobias, a 22-year-old from Jacksonville, Florida, declared her plea on Wednesday before Circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud, according to a report in The Florida Times-Union.

Tobias was arrested in January. She reportedly told investigators that she shook the baby, smoked a cigarette “to compose herself”, then shook him again. She said the baby might have hit his head during one of the two shakings. He was just three months old.

Tobias is the one that killed her baby boy, not the developers at Zynga. FarmVille is a cooperative, non-violent game and one that withstands interruptions easily – the very antithesis of a first-person shooter. So on one level I don’t blame the game and I wonder if Tobias was suffering from severe post-natal depression.

On another level, it appalls me how truly addictive people seem to find FarmVille. This is the first report I’ve heard of this kind but there have been plenty of stories written about people who play it all day long, even losing their jobs and going into debt. I’m not a psychologist but I could imagine mindless addiction to a game like this – especially one that is so untaxing and repetitive – being  a huge temptation for people who are depressed. Yet I would expect it to exacerbate any problems, since frittering away hours on something so unproductive hardly does wonders for your self-esteem.

The vast majority of FarmVille players access the game through Facebook, where it has 61 million registered users – equivalent to the entire population of the United Kingdom. I’m sure most FarmVille players are just ordinary people passing a bit of time with a fun, animated game but, like any activity, there will be some who take it to excess.

I have no idea what Tobias is doing now (aside from her court appearances, that is). I hope she is not still playing FarmVille. But I can’t help thinking about how a young life has been lost and another one (the mother’s) permanently damaged.

I can only speculate about Tobias’ state of mind – aside from the fact that she looks so sad and lost in her mug shot (above). However, looking at the bigger picture, I know that depression is a real and serious illness. I hope any readers who experience the symptoms will seek help (your doctor is a good place to start), rather than let the situation spiral out of control.

And remember, it’s not a tragedy if your virtual strawberries wither on the vine.

Source: http://www.allfacebook.com/kills-baby-farmville-2010-10

I just...I just.....I just have no words

This are the kinds of stories you expect from Asia like the South Korean couple that were so addicted in a game their newborn died.

It is sad..

tuely sad 

its the same as excessive tv, drugs, alcohol etc they all can do stuff like this, not just gaming but wow farmville 

Farmville is addicting but not no the sheer scale of Tribal wars, that game is Farmville dialled up to 100 in addiction ability. Same type of concept but its hardcore addictive  

Indeed. I lost track of how many babies I killed back when I used to play Tribal Wars. Once I got a few villages under my control, I was a regular one man Planned Parenthood.

I think its more sad because its a stupid game.

I actually find all facebook games to be extremelly boring. Tried Chocobo's crystal tower yesterday and it had nice FF music... but it was boring :P

I don't know how people can get addicted to games like these. They have no story, no dialogue, crappy soundtrack, crappy graphics, crappy gameplay mechanics, no replay value, no epic moments, no epic boss fights, etc (at least the ones I've played so far are like that) :P

It's like you'll be doing what you did in the first 15 minutes of the game forever... and never get to finish the game.

You sure you weren't playing FF14? Or 13? Or 12? Or X-2?

Sad very sad.

my father always is obssessed with this game, it takes all of his time away, i can't remember the last time we sat down to watch a movie or eat dinner or do anything at his place together, i always try to take him to the theater or something to keep him away from it, but he still manage grab his laptop with him so the virtual grass wont die -_-;  , my father used to be a gamer when i was young, but even at that time he wasn't THAT obsessed with games.

Haha, yeah, I'm sure :P

I played it in my laptop, and my laptop can't run FFXIV... and XIII, XII and X-2 are only on consoles, so I couldn't have been playing it in my laptop... the PS2 emulator works like at 6 FPS here, so that isn't an option either...

So yeah, it wasn't any of those :P

Can't wait for Versus XIII T_T