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The purpose of many  computer products in the area of information and communications  technology is to capture the user\u2019s attention, distract it from the  actual place where the user is situated, and export it to some virtual  space where advertisers practise their persuasion. The enterprise has  been enormously successful, though the effects on users aren\u2019t always  benign (anxiety, depression, etc). Philosophically, the more insidious  effects are on how we think and who we think we are, encouraging  calculative thinking and a post-Cartesian self-image of ourselves as  disembodied minds only contingently situated in physical places. The  implications for education deserve careful consideration.