Here are my thoughts on the second chapter of Turkle. technology has been at a steep incline since the 1970's and every year more and more amazing things come out for both fun and necessities. Turkle speaks of two major machines that children believe are alive: Furby and Tamogotchi. I owned both a Furby and a tamogotchi, so I want to express the similarities from my own experiences with the stories in Turkle's book. One, Turkle says that children believe that these things were partly alive and children often got emotionally attached to the machines.
My tamogotchi was not a "pet" to me. I played with my tamogotchi for a long time but i never felt an emotional attachment to it. I had no pets at the time either so it was the closest thing to a pet I had, yet no feelings of remorse came over me when it died. Tamogotchi's, for me and my older brother, were a contest to see who could keep theirs alive the longest. When it finally "died" we would start over and play the game again. I would even say it died, but that did not mean that i ever thought it was actually alive. I believe it is just an easier wat to say the game died than it is to say the batteries ran out or I was neglectful. I use the smae vernacular today when i play a video game. When i get shot in a first person shooter game, I say that guy killed me, not that guy terminated my character. I think Turkle may be looking into this particular part of the study from a wrong angle. Saying the game died does not neccessarily mean the child thinks the machine was alive at one point, but simply a way of explaining something in the current era.
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