In Jaron Lanier’s recent book he tells us “you are not a gadget.” But what if your gadget is you? More and more these days, our personal digital devices are melding with our tastes and desires—our very minds. They inform us, entertain us, wake us up, calm us down, connect us to old friends, and introduce us to new ones.

Is it any wonder that we are in love with our smartphones, as Damon Darlin asks and answers in his New York Times essay “Can This Be Love?” As he observes, “It’s like carrying around a second self.” Darlin, an iPhone owner today, still mourns his original love, the now-clunky Palm Treo (it still sits on his kitchen counter, just in case). His essay is a fun read, and offers liberal quotes from one of the more outspoken Glimmerati in my book, product designer Donald Norman.

So I must disagree with Darlin’s implication that designers are simply into “chamfering a particular edge so you’d want to hold” the product (I don’t know what the word “chamfering” means, but I do like the sound of it). Instead, designers continue to be the ultimate matchmakers between us and much of what surrounds us, ensuring, no doubt, many more years of crushes and breakups as, say, our smartphones become ever smarter.

No related posts, but check around GlimmerSite for lots of other interesting articles.