Wendyl Nissen: The iHusband's angry birds

Talking seems to have disappeared, thanks to electronic media. Photo / Thinkstock

Remember when we all used to sit on this couch and watch TV together?" I said to my husband and youngest daughter.

"Mmmmm," said she.

"Yeah," said he.

The television was on but we weren't watching it. Instead, my husband was glued to his iPhone as he has been pretty much since he bought it six months ago.

It is his constant companion, even in the bathroom where, for the first time in his life, he manages to multi-task between gazing adoringly at its screen and brushing his teeth.

My daughter was tapping away with lightening speed on the laptop, monitoring her Facebook page. Most nights it resembles an electronic minefield with chats popping up every few seconds from her friends, and photos being scrolled through in haste.

She usually conducts this activity while also talking to one of her friends on the phone.

"Chat me, I can't find you!" she instructs. "Why did you just block your Mum's friend?" she asks.

While all this is going on I am reading my iPad. Yes, I own an iPad. I have kept it secret simply because my role as an ambassador for iPhone widows has meant I have a barely concealed dislike for anything beginning with a lower case 'i'.

And then my iPad turned up as a Valentine's Day present with the words 'Wendyl, Happy Valentine's Day darling' engraved on the back.

It would have been churlish to have rejected the thing so I smiled sweetly and spent the next few weeks eyeing it up suspiciously from the other side of the room.

These days we get together once a day to read my favourite British newspapers. I do The Times crossword to ward off Alzheimer's and I download and read Vanity Fair and Oprah for half the price I pay for their hard copies to be flown out here and stocked by a bookshop.

And so, there we were, the three of us, snuggled up on the couch enjoying our own web-based worlds rather than joining forces and watching a TV show which was trying and failing to get our attention.

"I guess, at least, we're all together," I said, hoping to get some conversation going. "There's a story in The Times about how people are abandoning their living rooms for their beds because it's just so much more comfortable going online with your iPad while you recline under your duvet than being distracted by a box in the corner of the room. Sales of big cushions and comforters for the bedroom are through the roof!"

"I'm off to bed," said our daughter, taking the laptop and a big cushion with her.

"You spend more time in the bedroom than the living room," said my husband.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you say something?" I said. "It's just that usually when you are with your iPhone it gets all of your attention. I'm just reading an article about a survey of Stanford University students which found that it is possible to be addicted to your iPhone."

"When the kids are trying to find you they usually head straight for the bedroom. Not your office, not the kitchen and not the living room. You are most often in the bedroom," he said.

He did have a point. I have found that working in bed is the best way to fool myself into meeting a deadline because if you're in bed, especially under the duvet, it's not like you are working. To work you must sit upright at a desk and look at your computer screen.

"I'm just reading an article about how it is possible to become addicted to your bed," he said, before laughing his head off and insisting that I watch yet another YouTube video on his iPhone.

And then it went silent. I read with interest about the difficult decision to be made by Royal Wedding guests over whether to wear a hat or a fascinator and he started moving his index finger vigorously across his iPhone screen.

I had a peek and found that the man I married mostly for his brain was trying to fling birds at a building full of cartoon pigs in what seemed to be a rather pointless game.

"Remember when we used to talk?" I remarked, before grabbing my iPad and heading for bed.

"Yeah," was all he said before high fiving the air and announcing he'd got through to the next round.