Conversations flowed, and there was a certain feeling that surrounded. When the woodstove arrived, all of this either disappeared or was rearranged. Suddenly, every room was heated and the family unit spread out to all corners of the house. In many ways, the Internet has done the same thing. It is almost a continuation of this move from one room to many.
People seek out their private time with the computers, leaving the family room empty.
The conversation of the family changes languages, and is typed out and appears on a screen. Hawthorne, as many others do today, perceived a future for society s children that would be vastly different from his own. He saw them growing up without ever knowing how it was before them. To the children born after the woodstove, the lifestyle they had was different than their parents. They knew nothing of fireside conversations, or of chopping cord after cord of wood.