Can Technology Replace Living Things?
from the or-will-it-cause-more-problems dept
Earlier this week we had a story about how robot pets can bring joy to the elderly, but now researchers are looking into whether or not the same "joy" that children feel when playing with robots is problematic to their development. They're wondering if children learn stuff from playing with real live animals, which they'll miss out on playing with robot dogs instead. This seems a bit silly to me. What about the millions of kids (myself included) who grew up without a dog completely? Did I not learn things about how living animals act because of this? The same researchers are also looking to see what the effects of remote controlled gardening vs. real gardening are and, if there's a difference between checking out scenary through a real window or a high definition screen.
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