Techno no-no?

The punk poet John Cooper Clarke is sharing one of the secrets of his art:¹ "I write all my poems with a quillA large feather with the end sharpened to use as a pen. - a beautiful thing with a calligrapherSomebody who practises the art of writing beautifully. 's nib - and parchmentA stiff, flat writing surface made out of animal skin. by candlelight... I don't have a typewriter or a computer, I don't own a mobile phone, and it's not possible to send me an email. If someone needs me, they can call my landline."

Clarke did not consciously decide to forego modern technology: "I'm not one of these people who wishes I'd lived 200 years ago." He is grateful for the benefits of electricity and advanced medicine. But the arrival of the mobile phone left him cold. The most up-to-date piece of equipment he owns is a DVD player.

"Not all change is for the better," he argues. "Progress is great, but I often want to say, 'You can stop there now'... It always goes on longer than it's needed."

His objections to tech are many. He refuses to bank online because of the scams to which people have lost huge sums of money. He believes that cash is important, because "if nobody has any spare change, how does your regular fella living in a cardboard box get by?" In general, "Technology seems to have a detrimentalNegative. effect on those struggling in society."

Self-checkouts in supermarkets are another bugbearA source of annoyance. . Not only do they do shop-workers out of jobs, but they can be incredibly slow: "You've got to stand in line while someone takes 20 minutes to self-scan every single item."

He worries, too, about people losing natural skills because of tech. Those who depend on Google Maps may forget how to find their way, or how to get directions from a stranger. Above all, "you stop interacting with the real world. It gets rid of something we used to call a social life."

Research supports this. According to Gaia Bernstein's book Unwired, the amount of time American teenagers spend partying has fallen by two thirds since the 1980s. Between 2000 and 2015, the number who got together regularly with friends halved.²

Like Clarke, the writer Eliane Glaser has always resisted smartphones. This is partly because she hates "the gap they open up between me and the people around me" and partly "a recognition of my own susceptibility to addiction".³

In a recent article for the Times, James Marriott wrote about trying to give up his smartphone. Up until then he was an addict who could easily spend four hours a day on it.

Marriott found it much easier than he expected: the only bad moment was when he could not remember the PIN number for his debit card. He felt "a sense of giddy freedom and relief" at being free of his phone's "endless wheedling demands for my attention". He noticed the beauty of his surroundings more, and was able to concentrate far better on his work.

Some people take temporary breaks from tech by embarking on a "digital detox" programme. The broadcaster and writer Richard Coles gave up social media for Lent and felt "a bit twitchy" for the first three days, but then got used to it.

Should we all try it?

Yes: Useful as tech is, we should not let it rule our lives. As James Marriott says, you do not "have to be a LudditeA member of the 19th Century English movement of textile workers against modern machinery. Now used to describe those opposed to new technology or ways of working. to find the 'phone zombies' lurching down every street a little dystopianRelating to an imagined society where there is great suffering or injustice. ".

No: For better or worse, we live in a high-tech world, and the more time we spend engaging with it the better we will succeed in it. Those who turn their backs on it deserve to be left behind.  

Or... The problem with tech is that it is not wholly reliable. There will always be times when your phone runs out of battery or a system goes down, so we need to remember alternative ways of doing things.