Our family vacation this summer was in Maui where we vacationed several years ago as well. I noticed a few things that changed in the past 3 or 4 years. The kids are now teens and pre-teens and were amazingly well behaved and involved in living the Aloha life that Maui offers. I also noted that my in-laws who are in their 70s were enjoying their Nooks and iPads for reading books. Likewise, the parents, aunts, and uncles were all enjoying various e-Readers and tablets for reading, watching videos, and playing games.

The kids were actually less inclined to read an e-book on the beach because they were too busy playing in the surf. However, when they took a break from exploring and swimming, they were gaming on their various gadgets or reading actual paper books.

As libraries struggle to find a new path in this age of gadget abundance, I look at my family vacation and realize that we have successfully reached all generations with technology. And it is not just the youth who are embracing it. In fact, some youth are now starting to disengage from the overload of technology to try to have more balanced lives.

While I did have my “smart-phone” and e-reader tablet in Maui, I turned off my work email and limited my monitoring of social media and email. My only internet access was through my phone, as the condo did not provide free internet. This was very much appreciated by my husband and the rest of the family as it allowed us the opportunity to connect with each other without the constant disruption of gadgets.

Whereas a few years ago, the kids would have been playing with their handheld game consoles and everyone (kids and adults) would have been reading paper books, now we all have our gadgets. And yes, some even took those e-Readers to the beach!

While reading in our family is never going away, the way we read is changing. None of us wanted to bring a dozen books in our suitcases with the extra fees airlines charge for luggage so having a dozen (or more) books downloaded on our various devices helped us keep the luggage fees in check and assure us that we wouldn’t run out of reading material.

Oh, and where do you think many of those e-books came from? You guessed it, the library. Some things never change.

 

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