Ethan Warters's "The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan" makes the case that pham1aceutical companies have changed the psychology of the Japanese people in ways that will allow the companies to...

Ethan Warters's "The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan" makes the case that pham1aceutical companies have changed the psychology of the Japanese people in ways that will allow the companies to sell drugs designed to treac depression, an illness unknown in that country before the advent of Western psychiaoy. Drug manufacturers see themselves as respondjng to a crucial human need-whjch. according to Watters, they actually create and profit from. Have the makers of Furbies and Tamagotchis done much the same thing? Are they creating needs in order to meet them? ln what ways do the new technologies of simulated life force us to rethink the rationale behind technological development? Have we become the servants of our technology?