A CONTROVERSIAL triad tamagotchi due out next month has found eager buyers among experts on substance abuse as far away as Finland.
The European Union-funded Prevnet Project, tasked to study drug and alcohol addiction and prevention, considers the tamagotchi electronic pets a potential new source of dependence.
Project co-ordinator and sociologist Teuvo Peltoniemi, based in Finland, warned that tamagotchi toys were the first wave of mass-produced virtual reality devices addicting children and even adults worldwide.
He plans to use the toys to illustrate how a user can develop uncontrollable emotional involvement.
'The triad tamagotchi and the original Japanese toy are an ideal example of the possible threat of a virtual world becoming, in the future, a real dependence problem needing treatment,' Dr Peltoniemi said.
'Virtual reality is a new drug and tamagotchis are the first wave. It's not just some fad that will go away.' Finland had recently caught tamagotchi fever, with children and adults playing the toys everywhere from subways to restaurants, he said.