Paticipate in a reseach study!

Hi! My name is Catherine Caudwell and I am a researcher in the School of Design at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

I would like to invite Tamatalk community members to participate in my PhD research project.

The Stories Tell Objects Project aims to understand the role that storytelling plays in people's interactions with electronic companions - such as Hasbro’s Furby - and the relationships we form with them. Participation includes responding in writing to various images and videos, and/or completing 2 short questionnaires. It should hopefully be a fun and creative exercise!

If you would like to learn more, or are interested in participating in this study, please visit: www.storiestellobjects.net

I would greatly appreciate any input from fans of electronic companions and virtual pets.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Kind regards,

Catherine Caudwell

PhD Candidate

School of Design

Victoria University

Wellington 6011

New Zealand

Explanatory PM sent to cate233 about personal website ads or links.

This research sounds really interesting!

Ms. Caudwell tells me the results will be posted online for everyone to check out once work is complete.

I encourage everyone to check it out.

I looked it over and uh.... well, um.... not to be brash but a lot of the images and such seem rather... dark. Almost seems like a lot of things are almost demonizing the poor things. At least for the pictures. The videos seem rather sad, well the first one anyway, and then the one with the blue one, my god. And the instructions, again, seems to be of bad light.

This is all just my opinion, though. Just a little scared looking at all the stuff. ^^;

Thanks for the feedback!

There are so many varied attitudes towards Furby and Tamagotchi out there, which is what I am so fascinated by.

This study looks like an interesting idea. However, a lot of this stuff looks very depressing on the surface (But it's not so much because it's "pets" you're looking at. I'll explain.).

This is the comment I posted for video 4:

Oh my gosh, that gray one is evil!! >8DBut is this supposed to be saying that electronic pets invoke unnecessary emotion? Because, although that’s true, many things invoke emotion, even if they aren’t real. Think about it: books, movies, pictures of anything, even cartoons, bring the same feelings. I guess what I’m getting at here is that virtual pets give you something to be attached to even to love, but so do many other types of media.

This site is pretty interesting, though. I wish you’d put more happy and/or Tamagotchi-related stuff in it, since many of us from TT are here for that reason.

Click to expand...

See, although your website is called "Stories tell Objects," it's also the other way around. These electronic pets, or whatever, are actors in a story that is really created by people, and one can sympathize it, just as they would with a book, movie, or another storytelling source. Even though I'm not a Furby fan at all, it still seemed kind of sad when there were the rejected virtual pets (But I guess it's kind of like Toy Story, isn't it? )

But these website/survey things really did make me think. ^_^

[trying to repost this because it didn't work last time]

Many of the images were...disturbing. I therefore did not participate, and I rather regret taking a look.

JLou said:

Many of the images were...disturbing. I therefore did not participate, and I rather regret taking a look.

Click to expand...

Same here, I agree.

What is the intention behind the project? Is it to see whether people are touched by pics of broken toys and pieces of plastic or what?

That's what I thought - disturbing Don't want to participate either...

EDIT> Sorry for the double post. My computer malfunctioned.

I can't view videos due to my ISP being stingy with bandwidth but the images all seemed overwhelmingly negative and cruel. Some of the images seem to show a broken Furby. If this is the case I'd hope you aquired one that was already broken and didn't destroy a perfectly good one that someone could have gotten some enjoyment out of. As a general rule, I have no problem with destroying stuffed animals or action figures. With things like Furby or Tamagotchi that are supposed to simulate life and inspire people to care for them as one would a pet it seems almost immoral to destroy them on purpose. I used to spend time on multiple forums dedicated to various electronic pets and the subject of whether it was right to destroy things like these was the subject of much debate.

I'd like to know what exactly you hope to learn with this study. You're right. The various attitudes people have towards electronic pets are fascinating.

Thanks for the feedback.

I am very interested in the stories people create around their electronic pets, and how they can become characters with a life of their own. As we know, fiction allows us to do things that are not possible in reality, and with this in mind I wonder how creating scenarios and narratives can change our relationships with electronic companions.

The scenarios in the study are of course open to interpretation, but the intention was to explore Furby as a character in it's own story, rather than an object that has affected by human hands.

As a side note, the broken Furby was indeed broken when it came to me. You raise an incredibly fascinating point about the treatment of electronic pets! I can safely say that all of my Furbys are in good condition and live on desk!

Participation is of course completely voluntary.

Thanks for all the replies, they have really made me think!

I'll try to be as clear as possible, because english is not my first language.

I visited your site www.storiestellobjects.net and looked at the pictures/videos. From this, I started asking myself : why would you show us, virtual pet lovers, such pictures and videos ?

At first i said to myself : They want to shock us, to disturb us. Maybe there is a purpose, maybe there is none and then it's completely free. Maybe the whole point of the project is to analyse our reactions when we see these pictures.

But then I thought about it, and i read the other replies.

Your study is , as you said, to explore Furby as a character in it's own story, rather than an object that has affected by human hands. That's a very interesting subject to explore in my opinion. Can we consider a furby or a tamagotchi as a real character, with feelings, stories... etc..

Almost everyone here were disturbed by the pictures :

the images all seemed overwhelmingly negative and cruel.

Click to expand...

. I too, was disturbed, and I didn't like what i saw. Why ?You said that our answers made you think. Your project made me think too, as you can see. The way we consider those virtual pets is indeed very subjective. You may see more people shocked by animal abuse rather than toy abuse <- this doesn't really make sense at all.

I think that's the way we consider these pets that's interesting.

One more thing :

I am very interested in the stories people create around their electronic pets, and how they can become characters with a life of their own. As we know, fiction allows us to do things that are not possible in reality, and with this in mind I wonder how creating scenarios and narratives can change our relationships with electronic companions.

Click to expand...

Do you mean that you want to know if the "story" or the "scenario" that we (us ? or someone else ? ) created around one electronic pet will change the way we interract with it or consider it ?

In all honesty the broken Black Furby in the beginning was very Creepy. in all honesty i didn't understand a lot of the pictures i guess i couldn't really get passed some of the "Care Guides" that were posted and the broken furby. I don't really like Furby and now I don't think I could.

I do love my Tamagotchi's as if they were a real person/animal, though. This didn't change my Opinion on TMGC's though. I'm not sure anything will...

-Puri-

Moussette said:

Do you mean that you want to know if the "story" or the "scenario" that we (us ? or someone else ? ) created around one electronic pet will change the way we interract with it or consider it ?

Click to expand...

Yes that is what I mean - How do we use storytelling to create a life for a companion object?

Thank you for such a thoughtful reply!

This research is actually really interesting and I think I can see where this is going. Is the point that humans get attached and can sympathize with things easily? That our emotions can be easily twisted even by inanimate objects? My emotions are a bit messed up, actually. I mean in Adventure Time in that episode when the Ice King accidentally hired a guy to kill Finn and Jake, I felt sorry for him because the Scorcher burned his talking moose head then in Percy Jackson I didn't feel anything at all when (WARNING SPOILS THE ENDING OF THE BOOK!) Percy and Annabeth fell into the pits of Tartarus; I was all "Ok, so they fell into Tartarus" Oh and yeah, those images are disturbing, they remind me of Coraline.

I absolutely HATE how they used disturbing images, why post them?! Almost nobody is joining because of them!!!

And images 7? WHAT THE NUGGET! There is absolutely WHAT SO EVER NO​ point in showing such disturbing things, I mean, cannibal Furbies? Honestly!

This is just my opinion, and this is why I will not join.

//T.A

Lol I feel like the researchers are trying to gauge how much 'weirdness' we can handle... Like if were ready for the more 'evil and creapy' virtual toys to come next. ive been noticing increasingly how it seems everyone from popstars to kids TV shows and movies are all becoming gothic and about death... Frankinweenie, monster high, nightmare before Christmas, transalvania ; and Rihanna and kesha and etc. popatars are dressing more goth and making more dark and creapy music videos. I Hope the toy world doesnt twist any vpats to come.

Gothic Virtual Pets wouldn't be anything new. There was already a Frankenstein and Mummy Virtual Pet in the Giga Pets line. But they sucked because the object was to kill them off. I'd be all for a more horror based pet where the object was to raise a monster and maybe unleash it upon hapless citizens but I have no interest in any virtual pet where the object is to kill it.

I answered to some of them...But it was taking a while, so I took a look at just how many stuff there was to tell "stories" about. The first few weren't so bad, but then they just got more and more strange...

...What the hell did I just contribute to?