Whenever she has time to spare at work, graphic designer Seph Chia plays with her pet rabbit and sneaks it a biscuit or two.
If she has more time, she takes her pet to the store to buy pet food or to the stadium to race.
'One reason virtual involvements are attractive to adults is that you can engage them in your own time. If you have a real pet or child or a relationship, you cannot put it off when you don't have the time.'
Sociologist Paulin Straughan
She does all this with a click of the mouse.
Instead of having a living, breathing pet, the 21-year-old and millions of others worldwide are opting for virtual pets on social networking site Facebook.
This new lease of life for artificial pets is a leap from the 1990s, when children and adults alike were snapping up talking Furby toys and Tamagotchi, the hand-held digital pet game.
Now, all the action is happening online, with a recent proliferation of virtual pet applications developed on Facebook.
Pet Society leads the pack with about 4.9 million active users worldwide, followed by (fluff)Friends (677,000), Pet Pupz (422,000) and Haikoo Zoo (48,000).
The Pet Pupz, Haikoo Zoo and (fluff)Friends applications allow users to choose from a predetermined set of animals, while pet owners on Pet Society can create their animal from scratch.
On all of these applications, pet owners can interact with their pet as they would a real one - naming it, feeding it and playing with it.
Pet owners can earn virtual dollars by visiting their friends' pets, having their pets race against other pets or betting on races. The 'money' they make is then used to pamper their pets.
On Pet Society, pet owners can even choose to visit a DIY store to buy such things as wallpaper, shelves and doors to trick out their pets' homes.
For those wanting to splurge, there is a luxury shop selling anything from Philippe Starck-esque furniture to state-of-the-art stereo systems.
Associate television producer Tham Yee Lin, 25, says of Pet Society: 'It boasts a different, alternate world that some people desire.
'Part of the attraction is also in outdoing your friends in earning more points to move up on the rankings.'
Ms Chia, who visits her virtual pet rabbit at least twice a day for about an hour each time, says: 'I like Pet Society's flash animation which are interactive and very interesting.'
Pet owners can also interact among themselves on all of these applications. And the more friends you have playing the game, the merrier.
Ms Tham says: 'The fewer friends you have playing this on Facebook, the more difficult it is for you to earn the money.'
For others such as housewife Mei Lim, 42, who spends about 10 hours a day online, it is a way to pass time.
She has a stomach condition that keeps her up at night.
The owner of four virtual pets on three different applications says: 'At night, when I cannot sleep, I surf the Internet and upkeep my pets then.'
Ms Chia admits that keeping her virtual pet alive makes her happy.
'I like the thrill of winning when I go to the stadium to get my pet to race or to bet on races,' she says.
Sociologist Paulin Straughan, 45, calls this an 'interesting phenomenon'.
She says: 'One reason virtual involvements are attractive to adults is that you can engage them in your own time.
'If you have a real pet or child or a relationship, you cannot put it off when you don't have the time or when you're not prepared.
'In real life, your relationship will turn sour or your pet will die. At the same time, these virtual pets take on characteristics that we find endearing in real pets.'
Psychologist Daniel Koh, 37, points out that time spent on virtual pet games on Facebook should be in moderation.
He says: 'Like anything else that requires a person to sit down for a long period of time staring into a screen, spending large amounts of time on virtual pet applications and avoiding physical activities could be unhealthy when it causes one to be uninterested in real life and neglect one's physical and mental health.'
Ms Lim says she has no worries on this score.
She owns real pets - three turtles, two hamsters and several fish - and she still prefers the real thing.
'There is nothing like a warm furball nosing you.'
jasminet@sph.com.sg
This story was first published in The Sunday Times on 4 January 2009.
