The Intellectual Pleasures of Draw Something

My coworker told me, “Download Draw Something and watch yournext 3 hours disappear.” I did exactly that, marveling that anything saveheroin and cigarettes could be quite as addictive as purported. Like 14million other users, I was immediately and almost irreparably hooked on thegame, which is a colorful, capacitive-screen update of the classic Pictionary.
At first I was rather rudimentary in my drawings—turning outgood-enough hieroglyphs for friends and strangers to guess. Then I took a turnwi...