Sales of electronics, computers and software have declined less than cars, food services, furniture, garden equipment and gasoline. In fact, the government's adjusted numbers for March and April of this year show people cut back even more on clothes than on personal technology.

What does that mean? One way to look at it is that while consumers have been cutting back spending in all other parts of their budget -- from dinner out to driving their cars -- they've continued to spend on gadgets, PCs and more. "Saturday night at a restaurant? Can't. The Backup drive for the PC is making funny noises. Gotta race out and buy a new one."

Yes, folks. Baby needs a new Western Digital MyBook.

People are spending on this stuff just as a wave of innovation in user experience has been hitting a stride.

As venture capitalist Fred Wilson writes in his blog, a series of new products have been spurred by advances in technology, including the iPhone, Flip Mino video camera and the video game Rock Band ("everyone can be a rock star for a few minutes").

Wilson says:

In most of these cases, the breakthrough product or service delivered a new experience to consumers that they had never had before. Sure there were social nets before Facebook, but none allowed you to run your life the way Facebook does for my kids. Sure there were browsers on phones before the iPhone, but there hadn't been one that you could actually use like you use a browser on a computer.

(It's worth reading all of Wilson's item.)