Tonight I took my kids out to dinner, and my oldest son spent the entire meal with his head in a book. He didn't hear me when I asked him a question, didn't laugh at any of my jokes, and didn't look up, even when his dessert arrived.
Reading at the dinner table is occasionally tolerated at our house, and I think it's because it delights us that our sons love to read as much as they do and tend to get lost in books. It smacks of a kind of childhood experience both Barak and I remember and wholly identify with-- and it feels wholesome.
But tonight as I brushed away my annoyance and slight hurt that my son preferred his novel to a conversation with me, it occurred to me that had he been playing a handheld video game at the table instead of reading a book, I would have been horrified and immediately told him to put it away. And I wondered if my judgment about the video game and my embrace of the book might just be generational bias-- a kind of nostalgia for what I know and a fear of what I don't. The truth is, some of the computer games my son plays are incredibly complex and intellectually stimulating. It's hard to make the argument that the book is intrinsically better for his mind. And he is just as checked out when he's reading as he is when he's playing on the computer-- maybe even more so.
There's a lively debate going on out there about the sanctified status reading has in our society and whether there isn't just as much to be said for the different kind of stimulus that new media can provide to kids. As we cover this topic, I'll try and stay honest about how it's playing out in my own household.
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