Brain Break: How to Find and Play the Basketball Game Hidden in Facebook Messenger TGIF, ballers. This sporty brain-drain's a slam dunk when it comes to wasting time.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow Mar 18, 2016

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Heya, player. How about a quick pickup game of basketball at your desk? C'mon, it's Friday. It's not like you're really working anyway.

Big Brother Facebook knows all, and it knows this, too. Maybe that's why the social giant tucked a fun little basketball game into its mobile Messenger app late yesterday.

Layup for layup, this baby's a slam dunk when it comes to wasting time. Predictably, the emoji-loaded hidden gem is a mindless brain-drain minigame (but we're so not above playing it). Plus, it arrives just in time to feed March Madness mania.

Facebook screengrab

Image Credit: Lindsay Friedman

Finders keepers
To get in on the FB b-ball action, double-check that you have the latest version of the mobile version of Facebook Messenger. Then send one of your Facebook Messenger friends a basketball emoji from the Messenger conversation window. (Crucial tip: Select the basketball emoji from your phone's native keyboard.) Next, tap on the basketball emoji to initiate the game and you're good to go.

Let's play
To start playing, swipe up on the basketball at the bottom of the screen and try to put it in the hoop. Your goal: to score as much as possible, obviously. Watch out for that moving backboard -- and, checkmate, prepare to accomplish nothing but this junk the rest of the day.

Remember the last time Facebook tucked a fun Easter egg such as this into mobile Messenger? The simple chess game debuted on the sly late last year. To give it a spin, type @FBChess into your chat. Good luck, and happy Friday, slackers.

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here.

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