Manifesto
You love looking at your phone. You do it in bed; on the bus; at the table; with your friends; before you sleep at night. You love looking at your phone. To confess you do not is to describe your days as a living hell.
iPhone games offer the simple joy of completing a task. Swipe the colored dots, jump the little wall, click the cow - these are challenges that we can do successfully, unfailingly: a hamster’s water bottle of dopamine drips - of diminishing return, perhaps, perhaps, but unending all the same. When you get down to it, every iPhone game says only: move your finger like this.
Keep your finger on the app and you’re winning (You are winning, aren’t ya, son?). Finger On The App boils down phone use to it’s minimalist core, and yet, for the hours or even days this contest runs, your phone can provide utterly no utility so long as you play. Finger On The App ties you to your device by the soft pressure of your dominant digit as inexorably as a steel ball and chain, while sealing it beyond your grasp.
In this connected world a million beeps and chimes compete for our attention, a deluge of contacts and content. As our attention spans flee, Finger On The App demands utmost devotion to a total absence of distraction: a game where you can’t do anything.
And one of you will win: but you will be a victor at the mercy of the conquered. If only the mass always had such sway over the throne. Ask yourself, having suffered - of boredom only, we hope - alongside your finger-possessing comrades in arms, will you, upon failure, wish the survivors the best of luck or curse them with your last breath? The winner of Finger On The App will be the player with the least control over its outcome.