My friend 'Sony' Tony has gone all digital. His primary ways of achieving many important things – his way of being a person in the world – is now dependent on digital technology. He consumes most of the information he needs to navigate the world via electronic means, through websites, blogs, RSS feeds, cable TV signals, Freeview and digital radio. He keeps in touch with family and friends through phone calls, e-mails and text messages, as well as instant messenger software – it's hard for him to make the time for meet-ups. For entertainment, it's films on DVD, TV, digital music on his PC and iPod, podcasts, online video, and of course games – the PSP when he's on the move, and PC and Xbox 360 games when he's at home.

At work, well, he's big into online so it’s digital all the way for him – no paper needs at all. He gets paid to push around pixels – whether in text, image, audio, or video form, it's all bits and bytes on a screen. Of course there is the still the body with its own agenda – trips to the dentist, the gym, the doctor, the feel of his kid’s hand on his forehead – but the reality is that his body gets short-shrift. It's like a second-hand car, never getting the investment it needs, never quite right, but alas far too expensive to replace. Or as he puts it, "It just gets in the way, so I've decided not to bother with it anymore."

In fact, Sony Tony says his body doesn't really contain his self anymore, although I'm sure it used to, when he was a little boy running downhill very fast, his arms windmilling like a helicopter. Now his container is harder to locate. His ideas? His laptop? His Treo? His Flickr account? He says he's not really sure. The reality is that much of his life is lived second hand – on computer screens, on telephone connections, via internet connections. His primary way of experiencing everything has become mediated through a set of interfaces that seem more engaging than the world itself – high-definition, true colour, super models – but not the real thing anymore. He has become his digital appetites.

I quite understand that you, of course, are not like Sony Tony. You don't watch up to three hours of television a night, or spend more than six hours a day in front of a computer monitor, or feel uncomfortable if you leave your house without your phone. You do that other stuff. You go to the theatre, you attend poetry readings. You sail. You play in a skiffle band. You organise Cluedo marathons. You have taught yourself the ukulele. You bottle fruit, and are planning to carve an effigy of the Eiffel Tower in soft cheese.

I bet you don't even have a mobile phone – you prefer to write long, amusing letters to friends that share something of your soul, not just txt off a quick "How r u?" You're not pressured by work, a long commute, and the hassle of being in a big city, like poor old Tony, so you drop in casually on friends every day, investing a little bit of attention by drinking a cup of tea with them slowly.

In fact, you're probably so attuned to your friends that you know the intricate rhythms of their jokes better than you do the familiar cadences of the actors on your favourite sitcoms. Tony says he hangs out in Central Perks with his Friends just a little too much these days.

I'm sure you've got a pretty good idea of what your mother is doing right now because you speak to her every day. You know the names of the plants in your garden, the birds that you pass by when you're out walking your dog. You have a visceral connection to the physical world and an intuitive sense of the nature of materials like stone, wood, and water – their feel in the hand, their properties, strengths, and value. You can throw a punch, bake bread, and waltz – you're marooned in the actual, gladly exiled from the fuzzy virtual pleasures that demand all Sony Tony's time.

Because Sony Tony is busy. He's working on his Xbox Live achievements and has recently been promoted to a very senior rank whilst playing Battlefield 2 online. His blog keeps getting picked up by Boing-Boing, he's zooming up the charts on Technorati and his Twitter page is extremely popular. He's just bought a whole island on a very cool sim in Second Life and has also scored an exclusive new skin for his avatar that looks incredibly sharp. And he says his iTunes collection has gone through "a series of progressive and rather startling evolutionary phases" that mean it's now something of a great and a rare beauty.

I'm sure you'll meet Tony one day, perhaps at an airport. You'll be looking at all the products you don't need, and he'll be running out of an electronics chain store with some new headphones, a portable recharger for his mobile and a stack of CDs to rip on the plane. He may or may not notice you, standing their without any wires or electronics on you, looking slightly sad at finding yourself in such a bleak, sterile environment. I'm sorry if he doesn't stop and say hello, but if you want to reach him online just send me a note at michael.parsons@cnet.co.uk, and I'll pass it on, and maybe you can both chat online sometime. He says it's always interesting to talk to people "who live in a completely different world."

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Michael Parsons, now editor of CNET.co.uk, was once European correspondent for The Red Herring magazine, and spent five years working in Silicon Valley and worrying about technology. He can be reached at michael.parsons@cnet.co.uk

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