The illusion of love: Does a virtual pet provide the same companionship as a real one?

Abstract

The purpose of this short paper is to examine whether a screen based virtual pet, specifically Nintendogs, gives any form of companionship comparable to a real pet. Nintendogs runs on a Nintendo DS, a mobile games console. The unit has a full colour screen showing an animated puppy which users must feed, water, walk, play with and train. An abundance of literature exists examining the benefits of owning a real pet yet very little has been written about human attachment to virtual pets. Six hundred five Nintendog users were contacted by email with a request to complete a questionnaire about their interaction, 80 (13%) responded. Nine hundred requests were made to a similar group who were asked to respond about their real pet, if they had one. One hundred sixteen responses were received. Results indicate that a Nintendog does give companionship, but companionship which is significantly less than that given by a real dog or cat.

Full text

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Interaction Studies
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 
embodied
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International Journal of Health Education & Promo
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tion
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
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Proc.
CHI 2003
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
Journal of the Delta Society
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Journal of Holis
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tic Nursing
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
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Anthrozoos
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          
Anthrozoos

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Anthrozoos
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Anthrozoos
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 

 
Proc.
CHI 2005



Psychoanalytic Psychology

 
e Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents & Multi
Agent Systems
Companion Animals in Human Health

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

      e International Society for
Anthrozoology on Ethological and Behavioural Approaches to the Study of Human–Animal
Interactions
Authors’ addresses
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
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
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

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Authors’ Biographical Notes:



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