Fear Of A Digital Planet

Just like it took me a couple of years to find out there is an electronic music compilation with the same name as my blog, there is a compilation of Canadian artists with this same title, but that isn't what I'm concerned about today. I'm talking about a world that will no longer know the charms of lugging around clunky devices and media. Kids these days. Sheesh.
For example: Students at my school will probably never fully grasp the concept of "quarter til" or "half past." Instead they will only know "eleven forty-three" or "nine thirty-two." For them, it will never be "about three." It will always be precisely two fifty-seven. That doesn't mean they won't continue to ask me when recess is.
I teach first and second graders who have their own cell phones. The idea that they would need these machines to keep in touch with their friends and family confounds me, since they are ten steps away from a phone in any classroom, and on the playground they tend to respond best to one another at the tops of their lungs. I have not had to intervene in any texting-generated chaos, but with our fourth and fifth graders, I suspect it's only a matter of time.
And what about music? It comes at them from everywhere. Great streaming chunks of music, from computers and iPods and phones and anything that can spit out an mp3 file. CDs are a waste of time, and don't even try to discuss the concept of music by friction with them. A broken record is something that Usain Bolt makes.
At the end of the day, it's all about Mister Caven being mired in the past. Not exactly what you'd expect from a guy who wishes for his own personal jet-pack, but life is full of contradictions, isn't it?