[neild]

The children of the post-PC future will only have access to iPads. Or Kindle Fires, as pure a consumption device as I can imagine.

Why would you think that would happen?

And while I'm at it, why is "consumption device" an insult? Books are consumption devices. Nobody sneers at a child with a book.

[joebadmo]

Sorry, that part was hyperbolic. But it's true that what the author is describing is the end of precisely the golden age you desribe. To whatever degree consumption devices replace production devices, there will be less exposure to them.

It's not an insult. But consumption devices are lamentable as far as they replace production devices. I love books, and I don't sneer at children who read them. But I would like all children to have access and exposure to writing tools so they realize that they too make books.

[freshhawk]

Books are a horrible example of a consumption device, the printing press profoundly opened up the ability to write and distribute books and ideas.

Sure, the modern pace of life makes writing and printing a book seem difficult but at the time modern books were a fantastic democritization of the ability to produce literature and distribute ideas compared to the status quo of being illiterate and going to church to be read to by those with access to the books.