top of page
Writer's pictureMeandering Madrasi

The Madrasi annoyed with 30 seconds ads

Updated: Jul 28, 2024


woman scrolling a mobile screen

Have you ever played a mind-numbing mobile game where you are forced to watch an ad for collecting diamonds or XPs or filling up an energy bar? Well, I have. The 30 seconds of excruciating wait time – when you just look at the seconds in the corner tick by. Just for those 30 seconds the mind teeters between a mind-numbing void and wistful gust of reality.


Such games are almost always a version of a fidget toy. Anyone with half-a-brain can identify the marketing goal of such ads – click & download. However, that’s not what I hope to decipher or understand. Their idea is to just pique an inane curiosity to further the boredom and listlessness. Quite unintentionally (or so I hope!), it leads the mind to an unlikely destination. So, let’s just get into the inner mechanics of how a seemingly harmless, even annoying ad mixes a toxic cocktail of guilt, hate, and self-depreciation.


Watch Ad or pay up precious diamonds or hard-earned cash that trickles in, one green paper at a time. We almost always choose the Ad. It’s better than spending virtual treasures that you can save up and use later. Well, most of us never get around to spending them. Anyway, there are two things I am reminded of, when writing this piece.


1. A memory of my father telling me that playing cards is addictive, do not play them, when he spots me playing an occasional solitaire when the internet is down, and I’m too bored to make the dinosaur jump in a desert.

2. The irking thought when looking at the clock tick by when 30 seconds feels like forever and my brain chooses the exact moment of frustration to chime in – “this is 30 seconds of your life wasted, that you are never getting back.”


The first one doesn’t bother me much because I’ve got to be in the midst of an absolute snooze fest to open solitaire or I need a bout of nostalgia for the good ol’ days for the simple ol’ games on the computer. I’m not ancient, I just happen to be born a few years before a new millennium. I’ve used encyclopedia in CDs, submitted homework assignments in floppy disks, played Tetris on Gameboy, and learnt cursive. So, maybe a different world where solitaire is nostalgic. So, calm down and keep reading.


The second, however, irks me to no end. More often than not, the mere 30s is enough to make me rethink disastrous life choices and shoves me down a spiral. What am I doing with myself? My time? Life is just sprinting past; everyone I know seems to have their life’s priorities sorted. I never thought I’d be sitting on my lazy arse waiting for a pointless ad to waste 30 seconds of my precious time.


Zap. 5s to go. Well, let me play for some more time and then go do my chores or work. Play. Watch. Repeat. The cycle is seemingly endless, until I go on a purge deleting apps and games from my phone. The 30s isn’t much, we spend countless hours sleeping, commuting to work, doing the dishes or laundry, but why should this teensiest fraction of time spent on a mind-numbing fidget spinner send me and countless others through a spiral, that none of the other mundane actions do?


I think the answer is simple. The rest of the mind-numbing activities are chores. We need to do them to survive, necessities and pretenses we keep up to be a functional part of the society. Whereas this alleged 30s gives us nothing substantial and society at large reinforces the fact that we have a ticking clock where every second matters. Every second you spend lost in thought is a wasted opportunity. Run, little hamster, Run.


We see days on the calendar, hours on the watch, sometimes even watch minutes crawl by, but seconds? This is the only place where we watch every second ominously expire and there is not much we can do about it except throw away (uninstall) the mind-numbing fidget spinner.


Here are some healthy alternatives I found. I am not going to say go out and breathe the fresh air or find a hobby. Although they are viable and better options. There are a couple of apps I have been using for a while now – Sky (Stunning visuals), Lumiosity (Brain teaser) and I love hue (Fidget toy). They help fill some space and time when I wish to be engaged in a mindless drivel without the 30 seconds of freefall. Also, there is nothing wrong with a bit of occasional mindless drivel. No Harm, No Foul.

12 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Kommentare


bottom of page