As that great storyteller Woody Allen told us in his 1996 film, Everyone Says I Love You. The heartbreak is that not everyone actually means it.

I love technology, but not as much as you, you see…but I still love technology- Kip from Napoleon Dynamite

By virtue of being blunderbussed over our head like so many fake air kisses, the word ‘love’ has nowadays acquired as much value as a Zimbabwean dollar.

Whereas in the good old black and white days of romance, love was reserved for other people and, at a stretch, for pets, nowadays we love everything under the sun. It’s like the 1960s but with less facial hair.

We love our clothes, our shoes, our cars. But do we really? I have a favourite pair of cashmere socks which I really like. I even wash them by hand – that’s what the washing instructions order me to do. They keep my feet as cosy as a toaster on a snappy winter morning.

But I wouldn’t say I love them. I like my car too, but I wouldn’t go on a date with it. As for my books, true, some of them have changed my life, but not in the same way that loved ones have.

What about technology? Well, that’s another matter altogether, I hear you say. Not really. You don’t love your new smartphone – you just like it because it makes your status more complicated. And you don’t really love a particular online comment – if you had to meet the person who aired that opinion in real life, you would ignore them.

But then, there are other forms of technology which do deserve a Valentine card (get cracking – the love-fest is just four days away). And it’s because they rekindle so many precious memories.

Like my old Tamagotchi for instance. I had raised my little pixellated monster on missed lunch breaks – it died on me when I was given an after-school punishment and I couldn’t feed it. I was inconsolable (I was eight years old).

Sometimes, technology comes as packaged love. My tablet was a sweet gesture, my noise-cancelling headphones a forgive-me gift, and my Thomas Pink tie with an inside pocket for an iPod was an attempt by my other half to solve the riddle of what men want (it’s not a tie with an iPod pocket, but it’s close enough).

And we love technology for what it is – it helps us work, joins in while we play and makes life that little bit easier. So, as Valentine’s Day approaches, think of your loved technology and switch it on.

techeditor@timesofmalta.com