Erikka Askeland: Hello to the world of sofa shopping IT WAS an idle Saturday midmorning, sat on the sofa with my laptop, and I was suddenly possessed by the notion that I should buy a vacuum cleaner. It is a fresh danger, this. The laptop, a sleek and whizzy Macbook, is still relatively new. Previously, if I was to submit to a whim to buy household electrics online I would have had to fire up my old desktop PC, the one that wheezes and groans when I press the "on" button as if powered by bellows. This was one of the reasons why I took the recent plunge to renew the computer. And when you sweat the technology like I do, using it for years like you might wear a favourite pair of old slippers, the new can be startling, as if you were living in a black-and-white world that suddenly switched to Technicolor. Or at least that is my excuse for fiddling with the machine that I still refer to as "the toy," for no particular reason, before becoming slightly intoxicated with the notion I could order something, almost anything, from the comfort of my lounge. I may even have been still wearing pyjamas. I mentioned to a friend how I bought a Dyson vacuum on my Macbook. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then pointed out that the combination of these things meant I have probably reached some fortysomething apogee, a phase of life where I can indulge a penchant for convenient household appliances with consolingly reliable brands. Obviously you can't get just any vacuum cleaner. Regular readers of this column might know, for example, that I am not a fan of spiders. And the machine is an important tool for dealing with them - haven't you heard that nothing can live in a vacuum? I'm sure the teenager I was would have rolled her eyes at the conformist pastimes of my incipient middle age. But maybe she would have been a bit dazzled by the gadgetry. Even now I can recall life back before being able to take day-to-day technology for granted. It is one of the fun parts of getting older. As children, we goggled when mum told us of the days before colour television. Now I wonder how people managed spontaneous pub outings before there were cash machines on every corner. But even though I can still occasionally grumble about walking an extra 50 yards to a cash point, it is hardly the grinding difficulties my grandmother had, who could recall how the electric mangle revolutionised laundry day. Like most people who are getting on a bit, I have an uneasy foreboding about the impact innovation will have on the next generation. I keep up with a friend who charts her young daughter's achievements through a Facebook profile. Written from the youngster's point of view, you can read updates on the rigours of potty training and playtime with Aunty Jo. As the girl gets older, she might treasure this narrative of her young life. Or it could become fodder for a fierce future mother-daughter conflict. But like the introduction of calculators into the school curriculum - a raging debate back in my day - the fears that students" brains would turn to slurry if they gave up long division was simply not the case. As it turned out, I was not so terribly corrupted as the doom-mongers feared, and I can still multiply fractions with only a bit of sweat on my brow. More recently, the celebrated linguist David Crystal did some research on the effects of "txt spk," and discovered that actually it has not ruined young people's ability to spell. Or at least, command of spelling and grammar is no worse than it was before everyone had mobile phones. When it comes to the digital world and all its conveniences, I'm more worried about the easy availability of hardcore pornography. Or the fact that soon, the only shops we will have are either Tesco or Amazon. And as the latter doesn't pay any tax, getting an £80 discount on a Hoover suddenly doesn't look so much like a good bargain. Even in these straightened times, the Easter long weekend is the first of the year when people buy vacuum cleaners and other household and DIY goods. My inner teenager wouldn't have approved, but it looks like I fit right in.