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I so do not agree with Queen’s University professor Sidney Eve Matrix, when she says that “these devices are an extension of our ‘digital selves'” and that “People really use such brands (ie. iPad) to communicate their ambition, their values, their identity”.  Say WHAT??   See, this is what happens when ‘experts’ comment on the world they inhabit to the exclusion of having lives.  I would suggest that if iPad and other similar devices owners see themselves that way or indeed live their lives as Dr. Matrix suggests, we are in a world of hurt .  However, I do not think it is true.  I reject the term ‘digital self’.  I reject even more strongly the suggestion that our core values, our very being are so tied up in a box of electronic parts.  If this were so, you would never need to meet someone face-to-face and if you did, there would be nothing more you could learn about them, because the electronic device had so accurately portrayed the sender to you already!  To me, looking at electronic devices – and they are just devices – this way, is the beginning of a slippery slope, the beginning of our de-humanization.  I refuse to believe that what I put ‘out there’ electronically has thing one to do with my core self, no more than the telephone is.  An item of convenience?  Yes.  A device that speeds up our lives (Is that good?)?  For sure.  A window to our souls?  Hardly!

This is what the manufacturers of these devices are counting on.  That one simply cannot survive without them.  The luddite is being marginalized!  So when we have ‘experts’ spouting off about how integral these items are to our lives and to the success of our lives, man, I just LOSE IT!   I know, I know.  Here I am on a computer, blogging, Facebooking, putting it our there electronically.  However, I like to think that the medium I use does not ‘define’ me.  It is not my identity, but a tool only.  If you wish to know my values, I’d be pleased to tell you, but I can tell you that they are not defined by the toys I use.  Gotta go walk this off . . . .