I have bought a selfie stick!

Ok, it's embarrassing, and there is a serious risk that my family will disown me, but I have to come clean. I have bought a selfie stick. To be precise its a

LEAPCAM(TM) New Design 2 In 1 Professional Monopod

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LSO72L2/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item

Which sounds altogether more classy dosnt it.

I have scorned these devices many times, and in particular I was astonished to see how they were used on a recent trip to Norway. One guy with, I think, a GoPro camera seemed to be making a real time documentary of his time in Tromso. I recall pitying the people required to watch it!

What is my excuse? Well first a history lesson. Back in the 1980s I can clearly recall scoffing at the growth in popularity of what we then called video recorders. "Why would you need that, surely if you want to watch TV you organise your time to see things when they are broadcast, or you miss them" now I very rarely watch any broadcast TV, Sky+ means I can see it when it's convenient, and I don't need to watch annoying adverts.

Any new trends or innovation can seem daft at first - its different and sometimes odd, but dismissing innovation because some people are addicted to it is equally crazy. If we had all done that we would still be shouting at each other across the hills instead of using hand held communication devices.

Selfie sticks are, to be sure, an extension of the narcissistic phenomenon of selfies, which assumes that nothing happens unless there is a photo, and specifically a photo of me on a social media website. This extreme approach need not invalidate the whole idea, just because some people appear to be surgically connected to the ear buds of their mobile devices, to the exclusion of all human contact does not mean that listening to music of podcasts on your iPod is to be shunned. Like the selfie stick it adds a new option to our interaction with the world.

So, just as I wear noise cancelling earphones on a plane, listen to podcasts in the gym and watch time shifted TV, I shall use my selfie stick with pride to produce photos which would simply be impossible without it. Don't worry no one is going to have to watch extended videos of me walking along the street!