Highly recommend playing the game, even if not a fan of video games. It's wonderfully written and doesn't require a large time commitment. It's also devoid mechanical checks.
I have a mental list of video games that i could use to justify to my dad that video games are not a mindless waste of time. The Stanley Parable is on that list.
I would be careful about using The Stanley Parable for that specific purpose, because it is one of the easiest targets for "mindless waste of time" classification.
Don't get me wrong, I totally like it, but the whole "game" can be described as "do a bunch of actions, pick some different doors every time, and then restart it all over again, except it might be slightly different, but you are still just choosing which doors to walk through, while listening to some voice".
Note: I didn't "beat" the game (assuming there is some actual ending), but I spent a good couple of hours on it.
I loved the Stanley Parable but it seemed to me entirely written for gamers so I'm curious what a non-gamer would get out of it. Much of the dialog is about the experience of being a gamer.
Employee #427's job was simple: he sat at his desk in Room 427 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard.
Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order.
This is what Employee #427 did every day of every month of every year, and although others may have considered it soul rending,
Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job.
And Stanley was happy.