About This Video

Have you ever lost a cell phone and felt like you lost a piece of yourself? It’s just a phone. Or was it? Technology—in the form of computers, cell phones, iPods, etc.—increasingly mediates our experience with the world. And, consequently, we form a special bond with these gadgets. Is this human bond with inanimate objects a new phenomenon? What distinguishes our intimacy with technology from that with other objects?

Recorded June 2010; Posted September 2010