Why would I want a technology detox? Isn’t it great to be able to sit by a pool in Greece, listening via my ‘phone on wireless headphones to yesterday’s ’Sounds of the Seventies’ on the BBC iplayer? Having sent home the first holiday pics so there’s need to spend hours finding a post office on the last day to buy a stamp to send postcards which won’t arrive until we’ve been home for a week? It’s called progress; and it really is.
Are workers working from home more or less productive than those catching the 7.02am to London Bridge every day? ‘Probably sitting at home in their bleedin’ jim-jams’, said someone recently of a less-than-helpful call centre employee, the assumption being that, were they surrounded by colleagues and with a manager cracking the whip, he or she would have sorted his energy bill more efficiently.
Here’s a future problem that will doubtless be kicked down the road until it becomes a crisis. There’s a whole generation who may never be able to afford to buy their own homes.
Apple has just launched its first actual new product in quite a while, a virtual reality gizmo, and that is quite big news. What they do put out there is usually a big seller and makes still more big bucks.