it maybe a "proxy for an ephemeral quality" but to call it "tech fetishism" because it uses technology is wrong. it uses technology because that's the only way we have of dealing with massive amounts of information that a person could not process on their own.
we know that humans are subject to many cognitive biases. we wouldn't call 'eyeglasses' tech fetishm, but we're all nearsighted when it comes to our ability to connect the dots and form a bigger picture of the world around us.
We have had "probability before pascal"...and turing (Franklin), It is akin to tech-chic not because it is progress like glasses, but because it also provides >=illusion of qualitative progress when merely the error of measure rises explosively and non-linearly in a way that the measure becomes meaningless. In this world the most friends on FB have the most "reputation", and if this seems like an uncharitable example many would be hard pressed to find something more relevant via nu-computation other than mere obfuscation.
we know that humans are subject to many cognitive biases. we wouldn't call 'eyeglasses' tech fetishm, but we're all nearsighted when it comes to our ability to connect the dots and form a bigger picture of the world around us.