To create the 'cutest chainsaw'. Design a product that people get addicted to but then at the end of the day has a negative impact on the consumers.
Narrative
"Play to make money !" - Tomagotcha
Tomagaotcha is a product playing off the old addictive tamagotchi, a digital pet. Parents buy it for their children as a way to help their children to learn how to be responsible and take care of another 'being'. The bonus is that taking care of the product also earns them money. There are 4 stages of the Tomagotcha
The thing the parents do not know right away, and the part written in the small print that no one reads is that when the children stop playing with it for more than 2 hours, the Tomagotcha not only becomes sad and makes noises, but if it's left alone long enough starts taking money out of your account. To ensure you are not loosing money someone needs to continuously play with it. It's a needy toy. The money transaction happens by taking money out of a inactive users account and giving it to an active users. Ultimately it could make you control you, make you emotionally unstable or even loose you a lot of money.
Reflection
We attempted to do a 90's bad video. Just some of those really horrible videos from 90's. Reflecting back on the project, we were somewhat successful - I think there is still more we could have done. But definitely had fun doing this project while thinking about all the different things that we need to be aware of.
A few recommendations for IoT and technology in general
- Users should try to keep their identity separate from the technologies they use ideally preventing addictive behaviour.
- Maybe reading fine print will become a fad. It's not possible to know 100% about a product, but it is definitely really helpful to read the small text to understand the scope of the product. Hopefully this would encourage people to do more research - reading user reviews, talking to people etc.
- Be more deliberate before putting technology in the hands of the next generation.
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