I was standing in line at Starbucks when I felt it. That familiar vibration that alerts me that a new e-mail has arrived on my iPhone. Without thinking, I reached into my front, left trouser pocket to retrieve it. Only problem was, there was no phone there -- I had left it on my desk back at the office. It was the first of several phantom phone sensations that I've experienced over the past few months. And it got me thinking about how much my digital devices have become a part of me. So much so that I still feel their presence, even when they are not there -- like the pain that people who've lost a limb report, even though the arm or leg is no longer there.
Are these sensations heralding the first psychosomatic signs of the Singularity, when man and machines become one? Have I become so connected, so continuously, that my devices have become mere extensions of my own body? Have I allowed the technology to get under my skin, as it were, much like the promise (or threat) of brain implants, which will be appearing in an occipital lobe near you, very soon?
More...
0 comments
Post a Comment