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Living with three children who have been growing up with more technology than I ever dreamed of, it's instructive to watch what they use and what they don't.

They can all logon to email accounts and games sites (the ones I give them permission for, I'm not careless). They each have their preferred games machines - Wii for the 9-year-olds, PSP for the 15-year-old.

But what I find most unexpected is that they are unadventurous when it comes to new technology - I am more likely to go into a shop to try the latest minicomputer or GPS-enabled phone than they are.

For me technology is an adventure, for them an ingrained culture.

This was brought home to me during recent negotiations with my 15-year-old about a replacement for her iPod, which has finally died with a failed battery. She assures me there is a European directive somewhere which makes it obligatory for her to have access to music-on-earphones so she can ignore us at key moments. And so "I just have to have a new one, Dad... I'll go mad if I don't."

We went through the usual format: "Can't you get a cheap MP3 player?" "Oh, Dad, you just don't understand, it's got to be Apple otherwise my music won't download properly!"

One of the mobile phone companies is offering a deal on the new iPhone, which can play iTunes and is a phone and GPS and all the rest... the kind of thing I would have promised to give up pocket money for if I had ever had the chance.

But no, it's too much technology, she said. "My iPod is my friend but my phone is just a phone so I don't want them together."

The iPod (deceased) had a name apparently - Minnie. There's probably a funeral rite for dead iPods.

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On Friday's World Update, we discussed the concerns of doctors that too many couples having IVF end up with twins or triplets, putting strain on the mother at least and the family finances in some cases too.

I commented that our twins had been a delight so (perhaps unwisely) I implied I couldn't really see what the trouble was.

Of course I don't mean to belittle the hardship multiple births can cause - but it is a fact that watching twins grow up is one of the most exciting and rewarding human experiences.

I'm not going to put up pictures of ours, for the obvious reasons.

But I will tell you that they are as different as you could imagine - Henry is constantly on the go, worried he's not getting enough praise however much we give him, and never puts on weight however much he eats. And he can eat just about anything - how many nine year-old boys do you know who like spicy curry?

Alexandra, on the other hand, is happier sitting in front of the TV than anything else and the fact that we don't let her is something she plans to put right when in a decade or so she gets her own place with her own television. It'll be a big one.

Almost her first word was "cake!"

Luckily, she likes horses so gets plenty of exercise on her hyperactive pony and should avoid that modern epidemic, childhood obesity.

But she probably won't thank us for it, because we make her eat salad... yeugghh!

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