Do you remember the days of dial up internet connections?  ("Bare necessity" comes from Disney's Jungle Book movie.)

My son is renting his first apartment!  (Yes, he's 22, it's time!)  He has a good job and a bright future.  However, I was pretty surprised at the amount of money he is willing to spend for a high speed internet connection and phone data connection.  He considers his phone and internet connection to be his primary form of entertainment, to the tune of a couple of hundred dollars a month.  His primary news source seems to be me: "Hey Dad, what's the weather supposed to be tomorrow?"  His primary source of "life" information is his Mom: "Hey Mom, who do I call for electricity?"

As a corollary, my granddaughter seems to feel the need to carry a cell phone around.  At 19 months she can differentiate between a cell phone that is working and one that is for her to play with.  It's cute to watch her jibber jabbering with an invisible friend.  Even though we don't play games at our house, she has learned what a game contoller is and how to manipulate it.  I have to wonder how the heck she learned this so quickly?

I guess that's how we've taught our children.