iPod, therefore iBorg

When is an iPod not just an iPod? When it's "revolutionary device that transforms listeners into 'cyborgs,'"
according to Markus Giesler, an assistant professor of marketing at Toronto's York University. Giesler is conducting research on iPod users, to be crafted into an ethnographic study monikered "iPod Therefore iAm."

Are you ready to "technotranscend"? It's not a new dance move – it's Giesler's term for the process through which the iPod achieves its cyborg conversion. iPod is no mere
Walkman, Giesler says, but rather taps into a "hybrid entertainment matrix" in which functions such as random shuffle are not merely cute marketing covering featureless products, but rather are key constructs of digital entertainment: "Shuffle mode used to be a gimmick. Now it is the most viable strategy to access information that would otherwise be lost," he said. "It reduces the complexity of consumption. It's a cyborg consumption strategy."

What do you think, 'Pod people? Are we Borg people? I daresay the iPod shuffle is getting close to being small enough to implant... :)