By Denise Neil

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

For weeks now, Farmville — the popular and excessively addictive Facebook game everyone’s talking about — has been demanding my attention.

But not because I’m playing it.

In fact, based on what I’ve learned, I’m going to do everything in my power to avoid playing it.

But even if you’re not playing, you can’t avoid it, mainly because your Facebook page is filled every day by odd announcements that your friends have just been “promoted to professional plower status” (um, congratulations?) or have just “found a lonely brown cow” (um, sorry?).

You might also, as I am, be hearing bizarre Farmville-related stories. One of my friends told me her mother uses a network of other people’s Facebook accounts and a couple of fake ones for the sole purpose of growing her virtual Farmville farm. Another told me her brother requires her to tend to his virtual crops when his Internet is down.

Desperate to understand the draw, I harvested a little Farmville information this week.

Step one — I added the application to my Facebook page and attempted to figure out how it worked on my own. I planted some strawberries (I think) but couldn’t immediately figure it out.

Step two — I read the Wikipedia entry on Farmville, naturally.

Step three — I interviewed Farmville addict DeAwn Whitchurch, who tried to explain the allure.

Farmville is a game created for Facebook by a company called Zynga that allows users to manage and grow a virtual farm. (Zynga has tons of other similar interactive Facebook games, ranging from Mafia Wars to YoVille.)

Players earn money to build their farms by planting, growing and harvesting crops, but they can only succeed if they get help, and lots of it, from other Facebook friends.

Whitchurch got started with Farmville in August when a friend (who needed farming help) begged her to start playing.

She wanted to help her friend, so Whitchurch started a farm then quickly forgot about it.

“And then, one night I was up kind of late and couldn’t sleep and started poking around in there,” she said. “And now, I’m on every day two to three times a day.”

The game is truly addictive, she said, because the harder you work at it, the more exciting things (like houses and animals and seasonal decorations) players can add to their farms. Neglect the game for a few days, and all the work is for naught .

Whitchurch also likes it, she says, because she has struck up several Farmville friendships while playing. Players can communicate while cooperating on building their farms.

“I love the interaction part of it — chatting with people and meeting people from all over,” she said. “I’ve probably made 10 friends in the short amount of time I’ve been playing. I hadn’t made any new friends in years.”

After poking around two or three times on Farmville, I’ve somehow landed at level 2, have about 161 coins and several fields full of 23 percent grown soybeans.

I’m not sure yet whether that’s good. But I am sure that, with Twitter and Facebook Scrabble already sucking up too much of my time, I don’t need another Internet addiction.

I’m selling the farm.