[xiaoma]

Wow. I find it interesting you assumed the app was intended to address pain.

My first thought was that it was a game! I guess the lenses through which you view the world make an even starker difference than I'd already thought.

[lgas]

What are games, but apps intended to relieve the pain of boredom?

[xiaoma]

For me at least, games tend to fit one of the following two categories:

1) Fun caused by learning—whether if it's an 80's style sidescroller a racing game or a RTS, many many games are about steadily mastering skills and using them to take on progressively harder challenges.

2) Immersive stories—RPGs can offer many of the same benefits of either reading fiction or watching movies. This type is pretty rare on a mobile device, but certainly not unheard of.

In either case, a game is something I'd actively seek out, not a way of escaping "pain". I certainly don't feel a "pain" of boredom that needs to be relieved. I'm just not that morose.

[lgas]

I know I'm a little late in replying, but you're taking the term pain overly literally. My point was that you can frame anything in terms of pain.

For example if you're playing a game to learn, you can view that as trying to escape the pain of ignorance.

There's nothing morose about it.