Woman Shakes Baby to Death for Interrupting Farmville on Facebook
By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Oct 30th 2010 10:46AM
Filed under: Dr. Boyce Money, News
A 22-year-old mother in Jacksonville, FL, just pleaded guilty to second degree murder after killing her young son. The child, three-months old, was shaken to death because the mother had become angry that his crying interrupted her game of Farmville on Facebook.
The mother, Alexandria Tobias, faces up to 25 years in prison.
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Estimates are that Zynga brings in a cool million dollars per day for their distribution of the Farmland video game. The number of employees for the company has quadrupled in the last year to 775. The company is only three years old and was founded with half a billion in venture capital financing.
The death of Tobias’ baby will create public questions of corporate liability for video game addiction. I fully expect to see lawsuits filed as a result of this case, and I’m sure that more egregious stories lie underneath the surface. One of the hurdles for companies like Zynga is that there are some who believe that these games are actually designed to be addictive. It only takes one major lawsuit to open the floodgates and for Zynga to be no more. I’m sure they are sleeping with one eye open after this one.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
