Editor's note: President Obama drew some flack for his recent comments about the overuse of information and entertainment devices. But take a close look at his words, Gerren says, and you'll see that he was preaching responsibility, not abstinence. Gerren also says you'll notice something else: That tech folk tend to overact to anything that's not a validation of their beliefs and gadgets. Do you agree? -Jason

It seems that Overreaction Mondays now extend into weekends.

I've seen tech geeks and gamers lose it overreacting before, but watching what I've seen of the two groups since President Barack Obama's May 9 commencement speech at Hampton University has been something else. It's bemusing. The victim mentality is really starting to get old. And while the Ben Pattersons of the world want to challenge to Obama, I've got one for those of their ilk and sentiment.

How about we stop having an overemotional spaz, take out our little iPads, step away from Justin Beiber's Twitter feed and the third version of Plants vs. Zombies that we'd purchased, and use some of that discernment of information he was advocating.

The guy ran a ground-breaking online fund-raising campaign. He had ads on Xbox Live. He fought his own security to keep his Blackberry. The man isn't antitech, though the droves of angry geeks would lead you to believe that he's prepping the FBI to come and seize their gadgets.

The essence of what Obama was getting at is to be discerning about what we pick up from the flood of information that's at our fingertips around the clock. His very words actually were: "....You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation....

"...With so many voices clamoring for attention on blogs and on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult at times to sift through it all; to know what to believe; to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not. Let's face it, even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction. I've had some experience in that regard."

I'm not sure how many of the angry-nerd mob have a clue about the context in which those words were spoken. And that's sort of the point.  Much of the absolutely thoughtless way I've seen the entire "Obama disses iPad, games" anger and story spread completely minimalizes, if not omits, what else Obama said in the speech. Which is exactly the phenomenon for which he expresses concern.

The gadgets cited are portals of a lot of information we may consume in our era (this applies less to the gaming platforms than the Apple products), and much of the information is available on the fly, anytime and anywhere we want it. Because of our media-on-the-go culture, we often don't get complete ideas or pictures from that information because, much like the 30-second Super Bowl ad, people are often just trying to get our attention with the basics of that information or push their opinion on it.

He's not talking down or dismissing our $500 digital babies. He's asking us to consider what we are taking in from them and to think about if we're using them as tools for our own empowerment and to better our lives. He's no more trashing our devices of choice than a person is trashing a shot glass or mug when they express a desire for us to drink responsibly.

And my experience has proven that the only people that really take personal offense to such a moderation/responsibility message are the drunks. And trust me, I've seen many a person on a day without their cellphone or PDA break into nervous fits because they couldn't go to Twitter or Facebook.

Forget the alcoholism analogy; it's like watching a crack addict.

Seriously, are we demonizing a person for encouraging people at a graduation to think about the vast amount of information we have have available to us -- more than any generation before us -- and to seek truth within it? Really? Are we really such an insecure collective that if someone name-drops something we own while being critical not of the device but of information our fragile psyches can't handle it?

Many  -- be it journalist, CEO, PR rep, business owner, or countless other types people -- use these devices in a very productive and socially responsible manner on a daily basis, for work, school, communication, and, yes, even entertainment, as a certain amount of entertainment for a person is healthy and productive. Many are very well informed and are socially and civically active in their communities partially because of their uses of these devices. I believe Patterson would probably fall into that lot.

I'm certain most of those who use these devices weren't having a minibreakdown over what Obama said, especially upon informing themselves enough to know what was actually being said in context. I tend to have the faith in them, that they actually saw value in challenging people to think about the information and media available to them and what they consume. And I'm certain they accomplished this without having their self-identities so tied into an inanimate object as to go into a rage for having said object mentioned as a relevant delivery platform for that information.

For as much as I didn't care much for the substance of Roger Ebert's criticism of games in his latest "games aren't art" outburst, he did raise an interesting point question about the insecurity of the gaming community that I think spills over into the tech community in general. They're sensitive to the point that it seems we're now complaining about phantom jabs that were never thrown.

Gerren LaQuint Fisher doesn't have an app for that. He does contribute to The Game Reviews, Tweets @gerrenlaquint, and runs a humble little blog called The Underscore