Pubs are no places to catch up on the latest YouTube video

MILLIONS of Britons check their mobiles every five minutes and have not had a day apart from the device in five years, according to a survey. I confess to being a dinosaur over the use of mobiles, using one to make only essential calls – “Can I order a takeaway, please?” – and precious few times in between.

My daughters and their husbands live through their phones, professionally and socially, so I appreciate their value. What I can’t abide are people using them in the street with head down and firm stride like The Titanic in search of an iceberg, or when they are produced in the pub and folk abandon social discourse to start showing each other funny bits from YouTube.

Pubs are for putting the world right, meaningful discussion, sharing daft memories and telling funny stories, not watching a five inch screen. But I wonder if the same observation was made around campfires centuries ago when scribes began to record history and fables on parchment for folk to read instead of memorise.

“It’ll be the ruin of oral tradition. Mark my words.”

I fully expect phones to eventually be miniaturised to a microdot, implanted at birth and have the ability to project a hologram to watch YouTube. Thank goodness that hasn’t happened yet.

Of course, every pub still has natural storytellers who maintain oral tradition, endlessly recycling old jokes or describing the intricacies of fitting a stopcock. Perhaps tonight I should take my mobile to the pub and watch YouTube.