That's how I felt about it when I first heard it, and dismissed it. Lately, I recognize that this is the leading edge of another shift in how we interface with

That's how I felt about it when I first heard it, and dismissed it. Lately, I recognize that this is the leading edge of another shift in how we interface with computing. (Chat bot assistants/voice interfaces). I also missed the fact that you can extend Alexa and customize it by adding skills or writing your own skills. So I'm seriously considering getting one and playing with it, to stay in tune with the way our society is moving. When the first iphone came on, I also recognized it as a shift. However, I stubbornly stuck with my feature phone for years. There was the same paranoia of being tracked everywhere with the iphone, and I felt uncomfortable about it. I eventually got an ipod touch, just so I could try it out. It wasn't until my feature phone was lost for good that I took the step to get an iphone, back in 2012. Very quickly, what I used to sit, fixated in front of my computer, I compacted into my phone. I watched how it shifted and changed the way I lived my life -- but also, mindfully decided what I want and what I didn't want. (I installed many instant messenger apps and got rid of messenging apps on my laptop, except for Slack -- but to this day, I don't have Facebook on my phone because I don't want to get sucked into it on the phone). Around that time, I was entering a new phase in my life, one that involved dropping a lot of the paranoia and junk in my head. So now, I recognized that same reaction with the Echo. It'll be interesting to give this a try.