Virtual Pets and Social Media Stress?
I remember the beginning of the virtual pet craze in the mid 90’s beginning with the Tamagotchi virtual pet, followed by Digimon, Giga Pets, Nano Pets, and others. If you are not familiar with any of these, they were a keychain sized toy that fit in your pocket with a tiny LCD screen portraying a low bit animation of your pet and a few buttons for interactions.
These required regular intervals of care and attention. If you neglected your virtual pet or monster, it became weaker and would eventually die, but if you spent more time with it, then it would thrive.
It was stressful, and compelled kids to stay connected to the device in their pocket. The virtual pet eventually moved online with a much more robust user experience with better graphics and a huge increase to the scope of the pet’s world. It had tremendous success at keeping kids glued to a computer to keep up with their Neopets.
What would the effect be for a child who didn’t have just one Nano Pet in his or her pocket but a hundred or more? It would be a full-time job trying to maintain the connection to each virtual pet. Now imagine how this relates to social media connections today. It is one thing if you only have a single friend online to invest your time with for the purpose of cultivating a relationship. Through social media, you may have hundreds if not thousands of connections to maintain.
Along with the time needed, there would also be an increase in anxiety and stress. This is the effect that many teens are encountering – the paradox of being driven to boost their self-image by having more social media connections but becoming more anxious and depressed as those connections grow and must be managed.
Teens have struggled for decades with bullies, cliques, being unpopular, and longing for popularity. It was often hard work to cultivate one or more meaningful friendships, long before the digital age. It was stressful back in my day, but it does not compare to the out-of-proportion expectations that are put on teens today in their online lives. There are expectations of themselves and expectations from others. It has become a suffocating oppression that weighs upon this generation.
