We are far too manacled to our phones and I am as guilty as anyone else

“Without saying your age, say something a young person today wouldn’t understand…” I took up that Twitter challenge by responding: “SU carbs”.

The British carburettors were state-of-art performance enhancers in the ’60s and, early on, I had a vague idea of what they – and their much sexier side-draft Weber equivalents – meant in terms of automotive trumps.

I have a pair of Japanese Hitachi copies on my old Datsun at the moment and, much like their British counterparts, require a quiet prayer to the Gods of Combustion every time you pull out the choke cable to start the engine.

I’ve watched many classic car owners have their collectables converted to electric – and it makes a lot of sense to me because it’s better for the environment, less complex and offers better performance.

If I had the money, I’d consider it for my car… and at the same time upgrade the really agricultural period items like the drum brakes.

That is by way of showing I am by no means a technophobe living in the past. I was born into the analogue world but cope quite well in the rapidly expanding digital universe.

I navigate my way around computer tech with reasonable ease, because I only learn what I need to get by in the job and at home.

I can even teach others – as I did my wife the other day when she wanted to know how to do a “screen grab” from her laptop.

When the dog decided to have the TV remote for breakfast this week (my fault, I left it lying on the carpet), I quickly discovered I could download an app on to my phone to turn it into a remote control.

Yet, I see the downside of technology all too clearly.

Most of us spend far too much time on social media, which is the intellectual equivalent of candy floss – addictive but empty and capable of producing a fearsome gut-ache.

We are also far too manacled to our phones… notice how we seldom use the word cellphone these days because, in reality, they are the default.

I am as guilty as anyone else.

When phones were new and coverage was patchy, I could spend days in the bush where there was no signal and be quite happy.

Now, there are few places out of range of the networks and even in the Waterberg’s vast unspoilt beauty, I find myself glancing at my phone way too often.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of tech is that, apart from instant gratification (we never have to work for anything like knowledge or understanding), it offers us far too much choice of other worlds.

It is, as Elvis once sang, the reality that there are “67 channels and nothing’s on…”

Instead of treating ourselves to a once a month cinema trip, we now binge on Netflix series or DStv “boxsets”. And yet will feel vaguely unsatisfied.

Candyfloss wins again. In all of this, we are losing chunks of our humanity.

People are vile to each other on Twitter. Millions sit at home, lonely in front of their screens.

Such a world of infinite possibilities and no-one to share it with because they’ve lost the knack of communicating face-to-face.

I see some signs the pendulum may be swinging back: “old school” tech like vinyl records, collectable cars and art, “slow food” are all signs that people want something real, something tangible they can touch, rather a digital, virtual version.

But I hear a young voice piping up: “I don’t understand…”