Computers Taking Over

I've been a computer junkie ever since my job at the phone company, lo these six years ago now. My friends there cobbled together a hard drive from their leftover parts, and gave it to me as a going away present when our entire department was laid off. I had that computer for almost three years, with its one gig hard drive and 28 -- count them, ladies and gents, twenty-eight -- megabytes of RAM. Back then, our dial up was abominably slow, and I remember all too well simple web pages that still took five minutes to load.
Well, not any more. Now, I have DSL, and I absolutely love it. I can't believe I ever lived without it, and I think I might ransom my mother to keep it. My whole family loves it, too, which I am less thrilled about -- more competition for my seat at the monitor. Still, it's kinda neat that I never even saw a personal computer until college, and my son who's not yet two can number three different website titles among the twenty odd words that he can clearly say. I was about to go on to defend his online time by saying that he's behind a firewall, the sites are very safe and clean (especially compared to primetime TV these days!), and he's learning something... But why bother? The fact is, it's an ASSET to him to be as familiar with computers as possible. Sure, the ones he'll use when he's my age will look nothing like this one (beautiful as it is, with its 1.7 gHz processor, 30 gigabyte hard drive, and 500 megabytes of RAM, love it), but at least he'll be acquainted with the flow of technology, and also the fact that media platforms have a way of sinking under their own weight, and the way that today's technology keeps on providing the endoskeleton that tomorrow's tech grows on like a coral reef.
No, I don't have that many qualms about what my kids do online (but then, I have keystroke monitors everywhere, ha ha!) It's the fact that I myself am so tied to them that bothers me. I used to be the most voracious reader I knew. I could (and probably still can) read two or even three books a day, provided there are no frivolous distractions like work and children and real life. Now, I never read books. I read blogs, I read Google News like it was the Oracle at Delphi, I read opinions and commentary and even e-books when I can get them, but I never crack so much as a magazine any more.
Oh, well, better for the forests I guess. But I have resolved that I am going to start reading again, and I'm going to start with one of my very favorites. It's by Ursula K. LeGuin, and it's called The Dispossessed. Probably not a popular choice with a lot of people, but it's gonna make me happy tonight.