Nickie Muir: Kids' tablet hard to swallow

Some parents feel they are loosing their kids to the digital world. Photo/Thinkstock

"I know what happened to the plane. They were abducted by aliens but no one noticed because they were tweeting whatever they'd had for lunch."

"Mum, that is pretty insensitive," says the small person. She continues drawing on the tablet. She doesn't look up.

"But that's not the worst of it," I continue. "The air-traffic controllers were too busy taking selfies and updating Facebook they lost track of the plane which meant any time in the four hours it went missing it could have been in either the Indian Ocean or ... let's see ... Outer Mongolia but hey ... they weren't worried ... they could always look for it on Google Earth."

"Okay. Now you're just being mean," she says - still without looking up.

The Latin agrees and adds I'm only mad because I'm technically challenged and don't like losing her to the digital world. He's right, which further annoys me.

That the wondrous advances of digital bliss seem to be expressed in the ability to chase stuff through a temple, through the streets of New York on a train track, run down minions or catch a donkey-pig called Archy has left me underwhelmed at its educational possibilities.

"Why don't you just chase stuff outside?" I ask. "Like what?" "Well I don't know, that's half the fun ... the neighbour's bunny, the local JWs or something radical like ... a ball?" I get the look. The one that confirms to anyone in a 10-mile radius how lame I am and how she is suffering for it.

After another 10 minutes where I ban myself from making any further negative remarks about the cherished new toy there is a shout from the sofa. "Mum, my finger is losing weight from all this exercise!" Silently I resolve not to bash my head repeatedly against the kitchen bench.

"It's not like you're actually DOING anything or really LEARNING anything," I say.

She swears that this is not true.

"In fact I'm learning about farming" she says. "I have my own farm and I do cropping and feed the animals and, she says triumphantly, I even give extra food to poor people."

"Except you don't," I say. The Latin looks at me like I'm not just mean ... I'm evil. Because I have impulse control issues I continue. "No poor person will actually get fed because you have moved a couple of extra icons across a page. Neither will it actually help you to think about the millions of real poor people that exist or how that can be improved. While you and your friends are all playing 'Hay Day' some kid in some African village is probably solving the energy crisis with half a bicycle and a pile of poop from his real cow - and they will all be the new world leaders."

She's crestfallen. I feel mean. I move lollies into lines of three for 15 minutes. We crush candy and I wonder again what "quality time" might mean.

"Thanks Mum." "What for?" "For not saying that every second is making me dumber." I smile through clenched teeth. I can't answer - I'm having trouble dislodging my teeth from the tongue I've nearly bitten through.