Tamagotchi Nightmare
Tamagotchi: Virtual Pets or Virtual Pests?
Once upon a time in Japan... This is how most of the modern technology fairytales begin. This time the spell held the princess in a round plastic egg, a few buttons to keep her alive and a RESET button at the back just in case she died. The name of the sorcerer was Tamagotchi-a virtual toy for Japanese children who are not allowed to keep pets at home but who are affectionate enough to love anything they have to take care of, even if the thing can be a dinosaur, a dog, and a cat within the same week. The problem is, as usual with a wicked sorcerer, that adults as well as teenagers and children were captured by the electronic spell of a seemingly highly educational toy. Seemingly-because there is nothing educating in a bleeping plastic egg, except for the fact that it helps to develop certain motor abilities and definitely reinforces Pavlov dogs effect. Instead of becoming a relief to frustrated children Tamagotchi became a curse.
The effects can be heard before they can be seen: constant bleeping drives teachers, parents, and probably users nuts. It was fixed in the latest version, in which the user is informed of the state of the pet by a quiet buzz. Then the searching begins. If you see someone trying to find something in their pockets and panicking every time the search result is negative you see a potential mourner who will publicize the grief on an Internet page and use the burial web service to make sure the dog will live happily in the Tamagotchi heaven. Data go into bit buckets, but virtual animals have souls and therefore their spirits climb up the sky to heaven from where they can watch their human friends raise another animal (human version not available yet but coming soon). Children usually live through the loss, but adults have a hard time trying to get over it and often need professional help.
The point is that we are losing contact with nature. Children think that milk comes from factories and they believe a cat can be brought back to life by resetting it, plastic egg or the real thing. The games you play with your virtual pet never bring fun although they are meant to be educating as it must be the animal who wins, not you. You cannot lift a limp ear and whisper your problems into it as you can with a spaniel, you cannot touch soft fur, and you will never know how it is to run in the middle of the night in search of a veterinarian because your goldfish looks as if it couldn't breathe.
No goldfish can make your three wishes come true, but the real one can make you feel needed. You can always buy a virtual fishing line (NEW!!! Great price!!!) and catch yourself a shark if you wish. Then fry it on a virtual frying pan and dump into the garbage. Open a window and listen to the birds outside, go for a walk and smell the grass. Tell your children that in order to get milk a cow must be milked and keep virtual toys away from them. Life is too precious a thing to be wasted in search of a bleeping egg.