FreeRice.com: The Ethics of Equating Hunger with Entertainment
To begin, let me say that FreeRice.com is monumentally addicting.
A charity website launched in October 2007 by John Breen, a computer programmer and creater of TheHungerSite.com and Poverty.com, among others, FreeRice.com is a free and innovative vocabulary game that raises money to fight hunger.
Visitors to the site are immediately presented with a word and four possible definitions– if they select the correct one, then they move onto another word and another level. Simple, fun, addicting…but not all that unusual.
To throw a charitable twist into the system, however, for each correct definition, FreeRice.com donates 20 grains of rice through the United Nations. While 20 grains may seem like a measly amount, to date, 18,329,818,750 grains have been donated — enough to feed 916,491 people for one day and certainly enough to quiet the most discerning skeptic.
Considering myself something of a writer and amateur vocabulary expert, I found myself strangely drawn to the site, its elegant UI and its claim that by playing and exercising my brain I can “feed hungry people.” What more, after only managing to reach level 42 after a furious ten minutes of play, my competitive fire was lit and I became determined to reach the mythical level 55, reserved only for the most talented wordsmiths.
Yet despite the charitable claims of FreeRice.com and overwhelmingly positive press (see here, here, here, and here), I can’t help but feel somewhat uneasy about the equating of simple entertainment with world hunger. Doesn’t it seem somewhat wrong and disturbing that one teenager’s SAT practice game can control another’s daily caloric intake?
While the idea behind the site is certainly original if not brilliant, to my mind it seems to be trivializing hunger and even further disconnecting westerners from the real problem at hand.
Does playing a vocabulary game make users more aware of the world hunger crisis? Does it inspire them to care? Does it even matter?
Thus while I continue to visit the site in moments of tedium, my mind frequently returns to the problematic idea of connecting gaming and the Web with the alleviation of poverty.
While the wide appeal of FreeRice.com is certainly better than nothing, I can’t help but feel that the power of the Web could — and should — be leveraged for so much more.
To do something right now to help world hunger, click here to donate to World Hunger Year, the innovative and reputable hunger charity founded by singer Harry Chapin.
Or, if you can’t afford to make a donation, you know where to go…
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Monica Miller
Posted on February 26th, 2008 at 2:43 pm.
Excellent point. I experienced an undefined, yet nagging uneasiness with every attempt to reach higher vocabulary levels. I was playing regularly - once every couple of days at least, and I even added FreeRice.com to my browser’s bookmark toolbar, but forgot about the site until reading your post today.
What does it say about the FreeRice.com concept and my general outlook if world hunger has not crossed my mind in at least a week?