Peter Bromhead: Tied down by technology

Cartoon / Peter Bromhead

Woken in the small hours by my mobile's pinging, I sleepily read a text that instantly raised my anxiety levels.

It said: "I know you're sleeping with that bitch!" It was signed: "your wife".

Shaken and confused by the starkness of the communique, I immediately leapt out of bed and started searching for my trousers and car keys. Only then did I realise I was safely home in the marriage bed with the caregiver, the current wife, so I could only presume I'd been incorrectly texted.

When I politely texted back, "Sorry Madam, wrong mobile number", the reply stormed back, quick as a flash: "Don't bullshit me, you bastard!" Switching off my mobile in fear of further misguided bombardment, I slipped into an uneasy sleep.

When I laughingly showed the text to the caregiver over breakfast, she raised her eyebrows before casually murmuring, "are you absolutely sure you haven't been up to something?".

These events square with a report from an obscure American university, confirming what I've always suspected about mobile phones.

It seems they do not improve social interaction or reduce feelings of isolation.

To the contrary, users often suffer from heightened stress, as they feel obliged to stay "connected" around the clock.

Adding social media sites such as Facebook only compounds the anxiety, as users feel obliged to constantly comment on other people's trivia.

Disappointingly, the latest research excludes another phone-related emotional condition I've been suffering from of late, which I can only describe as acute boredom.

At every opportunity I'm being forced to play an insufferably mind-numbing phone game called Minecraft, with my young son who is addicted to the pastime.

I now live in a world dominated by zombies, skeletons and dragons. I note that one of the game's creative designers is called "Junkboy", which gives readers an idea of the speed everything is operating at.

I'm constantly being given dark warnings about something called the "Nether".

In Minecraft, the "Nether" turns out to be "a hell-like dimension accessed via player-built portals that contains many unique resources and can be used to travel great distances in the overworld" - or so Wikipedia says.

Hang on a moment, let me repeat that: "a hell-like dimension accessed via player-built portals that contains many unique resources and can be used to travel great distances."

Surely, a perfect description of the mobile phone technology that now enslaves us all. Christmas greetings everyone.