Once you see some of the apps available for mobile devices (notice I'm saying mobile device rather than smartphone), and the impact they can have, you'll get it. I don't mean you *might* get it, you will. It's not about Facebook or Twitter, I don't do those either. But, you're already involved in social media by posting to this board whether you realize it or not
Just running the Time Warner iPad app (assuming you have a DVR) would make you go oh my god I wanna jump of a bridge for not buying this gadget sooner. You could buy the most expensive remote out there, and it would not compare to how amazing that app is for searching and recording shows.
That doesn't include things like Scanner Pro, which makes it dead easy to quickly scan paper documents and put them into a .pdf for easy mailing.
Pop the iPad into one of those portfolio cases with the built in BT keyboard and you would probably find yourself seldom using your laptop (and enjoying much better battery life), reading on a better screen, and between the free Kindle app and iBookstore you wouldn't pic up the Nook reader again.
This is just a few examples of useful apps, it doesn't even include the frivolous stuff like the Korg Polysix for iPad, FLStudio for iPad, etc.
I might sound like I have something to gain by getting you on-board with this, but I don't. I just lost count of the people that I've been telling this over the past couple of years, only to hear their reaction that they think it's a "generational thing", then when they finally do get on board I hear how sorry they were for not heeding the advice long ago. Smart phones and tablets are much more than phones or "twitter devices" as Letterman would say.