Book Intimacy is a phrase I used the other day to The Eldest.  He’s approaching 16 years of age and as we all know, he knows everything.  As it is, he is actually very intelligent and the volume of useless, but fascinating, information he holds astonishes me.  Clearly he gets this from my side.  *Ahem*

Moving on. The Eldest is what one would consider tech-savvy.  Though I suppose most at his age are.  He’s just recently turned over his laptop, but he’s had one for years.  He has the newest Galaxy whatever phone.  He has an Xbox that the poor kid endured hours and hours of manual labor to earn enough money to buy.  He has memory cards and flash drives and who-ha’s out the wazzoo.  Clearly, he’s technical.  I should beam with satisfaction as my job is I.T. Coordinator, but truly all of this saddens me.

Why, you ask?  Because.  It sucks.  I know I exude my wide vocabulary and writing/speaking skills here, but in reality I’m well versed and learned from an early age the importance of little things such as grammar, spelling, eye-contact when speaking, general politeness, etc.  I fear this new technology ridden world and what it’s doing to children.

Hence the phrase I used with The Eldest the other day in a lengthy conversation.  He has been begging for a tablet or iPod touch for ages.  He has yet to receive either and will likely not receive them any time soon.  A snippet of the conversation went a little like this:

The Eldest: Mom, don’t you understand the copious amount of learning that I could do with a tablet?  Don’t you want that for me.  I only have two more years left in school.

Me: Copious?  You’re pulling out the big guns now.  And by the way, I hate to tell you that you have 3 years of high school and another 4 of college.  7.  You have 7 years of school.  You’re a sophomore this fall, it’s summer so that year still counts.

The Eldest: You knew what I meant, Mom.  *sigh* Ok, let’s work with this.  7 years, I can learn a lot in 7 years.  I can learn more from a tablet whose unyielding knowledge avenues are at my very fingertips.

Me: We have a library of information in our own home, 2 sets of encyclopedias, a home computer on which you can google to your hearts content.  Tell me where you would go to learn on a tablet that you could not do so at home or school.  Which is where you will primarily be for the next 7 years.

The Eldest: I could use it to read more.  I could download the Nook app and read more.  You always make us to read and this would make it so much easier.  I could read on trips in the backseat.  I could read anywhere I want.

Me: As a close to this conversation, I will say this.  You’ve made an excellent point, however it wasn’t strong enough to persuade me.  You have a phone which has internet allowing you to google as you need to.  You’re completely capable of carrying books with you which makes them as mobile as a tablet.  You need to learn book intimacy and then we’ll talk.

After a large set of sighs and a face palm he understood he wasn’t getting the blessed tablet and dropped it, for now.

To be honest, he almost won me over with his use of the word copious.