virtually all of us decide to value stuff that's not real

Perhaps I'm a little slow, so forgive me if you've seen this thought elsewhere, but over the past few days it's occurred to me that a lot of the recent and current hand-wringing about virtual friends and virtual living and, well, virtual everything, is a tad overblown.

And the reason I began to think so was a random thought about my own life growing up, because I had a lot of very powerful and formative experiences that were entirely virtual. Only the technology used to deliver those experiences was different than that of today... a tad more analog.

My virtual experiences were delivered by movies, TV and books.

Hawkeye and Trapper John weren't real, but I began to ape their jokes. Johnny Fever wasn't real, but he taught me that there was another way to deal with authority. Luke Skywalker wasn't real, but (spoiler alert for the very slow) I shared his devastation at the death of Obi-Wan. Julius Caesar hasn't been real for about 2000 years, but Isaac Asimov's book about the Roman Republic brought him to life for me.

I mean, what kind of existence did radio stars of the 1940s have to their audiences, other than as virtual presences in millions of families' living rooms? What kind of existence does Tom Cruise or Angelina Jolie have to you and me, other than as lights on a movie screen, blurry images on TMZ, or names in Pink is the New Blog? They have no relation to our physical everyday lives, and yet they seem to have meaning or value to us.

It's not computers or the Internet that are fostering virtual living. It's our technology, period. For thousands of years that technology was writing and painting – both weird biological/mechanical hybrids – but even before that, as soon as some Greek poet sat down and began to figure out in his head rhymes and lines about some warriors names Achilles and Hector, we began to live virtually. Language allowed us to live slightly outside of the "real" reality, and share other "made up" realities. And really, how different is that from a game of Dungeons and Dragons?

I'm not saying that Facebook and World of Warcraft are on par with the Iliad. But the realization that we've been doing this to ourselves for the past several thousand years suddenly makes me a lot more circumspect about judging the effects of technology, or thinking that the good old days are somehow manifestly different from today.

That's all.

every new iPhone user leaves someone else farther behind

I know people are salivating about today's iPhone 4 announcement, and that's great for those who see technology as fashion; people who are burning to trade up to the latest and greatest. A lot of people in our business would claim membership in this club, and this is probably a good thing professionally.

But it's also slightly misleading.

Because there are a lot of people around like the senior communications professional who was leading a team getting ready for a presentation, in the potential client's building. When there was a problem getting a wireless connection – vital because much of the deck contained links – this senior person asked, "Do the windows in here open?"

The minions were nonplussed at this non sequitur, but one of them dignified it with, "I don't know, why?"

"Well," he replied, "then we could hold the cables out the window to get better wireless reception."

There are early adopters who are passionate and knowledgeable about technology; we work with them, and we may in fact be them. But don't confuse them with your consumer (or your co-workers or bosses) unless that info is specifically in the brief.

Most people use the Internet like they use cars or microwaves – they know just enough about the technology to do the stuff they need, and no more. Because, basically, most people just don't give a shit about technology. They have better things to do with their lives.