Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

Once upon a time in Japan... This is how most of the modern technology fairytales begin. This time the spell held the princess in a round plastic egg, with a few buttons to keep her alive and a RESET button at the back just in case she died. The name of the sorcerer was Tamagotchi-a virtual toy for Japanese children who are not allowed to keep pets at home but who are affectionate enough to love anything they have to take care of, even if the thing can be a dinosaur, a dog, and a cat within the same week. The problem is, as usual with a wicked sorcerer, that adults as well as teenagers and children were captured by the electronic spell of a seemingly highly educational toy. Seemingly-because there is nothing educating in a bleeping plastic egg, except for the fact that it helps to develop certain motor abilities and definitely reinforces Pavlov dogs' effect. Instead of becoming a relief to frustrated children Tamagotchi became a curse.