Too much technology

Clearly, lots of people have been given gadgets for Christmas.

Today was the first real day back at work for lots of people. The trains were pretty empty last week, but crammed this morning. I have never seen so many people with i-pads, Kindles and new phones (trying to work out how they work).

I have to confess to being a bit of a philistine about stuff like this. That is despite managing the IT team at work (embarrassingly, I got a new work mobile phone and laptop last week and I had to ask one of my techies how to turn them on. My street cred has taken a considerable tumble!) and having quite a bit of technology at home.

I love the feel of a new book, and the smell of fresh paper knowing you are the first one to turn the pages is a constant pleasure. We have so many books in our house, it's like a library. Until very recently when its battery packed up, I had an ancient but perfectly servicable Nokia as my mobile. Virtually all it did was make phone calls and send texts. It could take a photo of grainy quality in an emergency (such as a prang in the motor) but otherwise I prefer a separate camera with a nice clunky shutter (although I must say digital is a great advance over film, particularly when you are a crap photographer like me. Did you hear Kodak has filed for receivership?). I do have a lovely high spec light weight laptop, but only because I take it to Greece with me to write my panto scripts and watch a DVD on the plane.

In the very near future, technology is going to take over the world and if you ask me, that's not a good thing. It is a constant battle at work to get staff that sit 20 yards from each other to get up off their arses and SPEAK to each other rather than play e-mail tennis. E-mail is so often misinterpreted; many's the time I have been caught out by sending an unwise e-mail or ill thought through phrase which has caused upset or offence.

Much to my regret, my children and step children entertain themselves almost solely through electronic devices - the TV, games consoles, their phones and the computer. I don't mean they're couch potatoes - they do go to the gym and play sports - but they don't read, they don't want to go for walks and the thought of playing an old fashioned game fills them with horror. These days we have lost the art of talking to each other. I make myself very unpopular at family do's if we host them by banning telly, because once it is switched on no one talks and there is no interaction. We might as well all be in different houses. So it gets switched off, people talk and ultimately the day is much more enjoyable. They all have DVD or video recorders or Sky Plus boxes, so if there really is something they don't want to miss they can watch it later.

One of the greatest pleasures of going on holiday for me is no telly and no technology demanding our attention. Even the phone pisses me off sometimes - if someone walked into a room and interrupted your conversation you'd think 'How rude!', but if the phone rings we stop what we are doing and answer it. It's the same thing! When it's been very busy, we have nights in for two - we unplug the phones, turn off the mobiles, switch off the telly and ignore the doorbell. It's amazing how restful that is - try it!

I'd like to experiment with a week with no gadgets and see how we get on. Perhaps a week long power cut would do it and then we couldn't use them! I bet we'd all come out of it less stressed and happier people!