{Nigella Lawson in her library}
I do not own a smart phone. I spend enough time on the computer (at work and home) thank you very much. I'm an old lady with a three year old (ha). I have to concentrate on the immediate, on every minute as it happens because I don't want to miss a single thing about her quick-as-a-wink childhood. So interesting and amazing and fun, she is. Sure, sometimes I think it would be great to be able to look up restaurant hours and directions on the fly. But what about all the mysteries and surprises I might miss out on--the things that happen when I am "lost"? [I highly recommend Matt Richtel's series in The New York Times, "Your Brain On Computers" or his interview on Fresh Air.]
I also do not own a Kindle or the like. I really think I will remain a Luddite to my death on this issue. Books are so perfect. And the thought of kids not having a bunch of books to puddle through makes me anxious in a way I don't think I've ever experienced. Audrey adores books and so many times we have already caught her reading in bed when she was supposed to be sleeping. I think this observation from an article Nicholson Baker wrote in the New Yorker a couple years ago is so funny.
The Kindle edition of “Selected Nuclear Materials and Engineering Systems,” an e-book for people who design nuclear power plants, sells for more than eight thousand dollars. Figure 2 is an elaborate chart of a reaction scheme, with many call-outs and chemical equations. It’s totally illegible. “You Save: $1,607.80 (20%),” the Kindle page says. “I’m not going to buy this book until the price comes down,” one stern Amazoner wrote.