How much I identified with Jayne Dowle’s problems with mobile phones (The Yorkshire Post, September 12). She made me laugh out loud. I felt, as a 76-year-old grandmother, that I ought to get to grips with a smartphone to keep in touch with the family, including five teenage grandchildren who are spread far and wide, including America.

This may come as something of a surprise, but television sets didn’t flicker into grainy existence nationwide in South Africa until 1976 and TV ads didn’t start until 1978. Programming was tightly controlled and limited to a few hours a night, alternating between Afrikaans and English.

I know it’s tempting, but maybe don’t Facebook friend request that new guy you’re dating.

The Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking recently published a study that suggests connecting on social media too early can negatively affect a person’s view of his or her SO.

The internet can be an excellent, helpful tool, but is it killing our brains and training them not to think for themselves but to rely on a machine to find the answer? People use the internet for a variety of uses. Some use it for online shopping; others may use it to read the news; while others may use it for fun and access social media or gambling websites. The point is, whatever anyone wants, they can usually get it in one form or another on the internet. But, is this reliance on technology making us less likely to try and think for ourselves when looking to solve a problem, rather than just hop online?

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“It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.” — Nelson Mandela

At a recent West Virginia University Academic Media Day, Dr. Elizabeth Cohen, an assistant professor with the department of communication studies, presented research regarding social media and its effect on the 2016 presidential campaign season.

Information overload is when your brain exceeds its processing capacity and leaves you feeling tired (like when your computer runs out of RAM and your computer crashes). It can also weaken your concentration, leaving you more susceptible to making bad decisions, and as a result, more likely to overload yourself from other sources of information as a means of procrastinating on important tasks. Yep, that’s right, I’m talking about television, the internet, checking emails, watching videos, and anything else that feeds you with information.

We love to complain about the amount of email we receive, and maybe the problem is that it’s just too easy to send an email now—a few taps on a smartphone is all it takes. But back in 1984, it required some serious dedication.

This local TV relic from the UK shows just how much more complicated it was to send an email thirty-two years ago, using the Prestel system.

Technology has a lot to answer for: killing old businesses, destroying the middle class, Buzzfeed. Technology in the form of the internet is especially villainous, having been accused of everything from making us dumber (paywall) to aiding dictatorships. But Michael Harris, riffing on the observations of Melvin Kranzberg, argues that “technology is neither good nor evil. The most we can say about it is this: It has come.”

The internet has upended the economics of business. Infinite “shelf space” for goods, new kinds of distribution for digital content, accurate mapping and ubiquitous computing, have drastically lowered the barriers to entry. Even small players now can offer a selection way beyond the dreams of any pre-internet business. As a result, barring some exceptions, the world is becoming less winner take all. There’s room now for a 10th, 20th and even 50th best product – we can cater for everyone and every taste.