[kyro]

I mostly agree.

I also think that physical vs. digital is a big determinant of whether Yours or Mine is appropriate. When using a physical object, you are at the very least spatially aware of all of the components. Your pencil, car, hammer are all items that operate due to mechanisms easily understandable at a very basic level simply by observation. There's no mystery. It is purely an object, and it is my object.

Digitally, however, you cannot understand the mechanism by which a mobile app works simply by observing it. There is a level of obscurity, a veil of mystery, as if someone, something were behind the scenes pulling the strings. Unlike looking at an engine and observing all of the gears and rods involved in making an axle spin, one cannot observe bytes of data travelling between microprocessors. I think it's that layer of obscurity that gives digital products a degree of personality that a car or hammer or pencil or knife cannot have. There's something at play that you're not seeing with digital interfaces, and perhaps we most comfortably assume that another human is involved in the process.