We millennials are permanent pupils of Google and Youtube

Not long ago, I tried giving up plastic. It was as difficult as I thought it would be, but impossible for a reason

I had not anticipated. Being unable to shop in supermarkets, where even plastic is wrapped in plastic, I started frequenting farmers’ markets, but quickly realised that butchers and cheesemongers speak a different language to me.

Asked at the cheese stall how much cheddar I wanted, I found myself staring at a £64 lump as large as my head. Who knows about “kg” and “lb” in 2018? I’m not even sure the latter is pronounced “libs”, given the look he gave me.

The same happened when I tried to order glass-bottled milk. “How many pints a week would you like?” he asked me – very rationally, in hindsight – but I had no idea. “How many pints of milk would I need if I drank two cups of coffee a day?” I asked mysteriously, as though it were a GCSE maths question.

When the organic vegetable box turned up I had to text my mum a picture of some small muddy balls in the bottom of the box to ask what they were. “Turnips,” she replied.

So unfortunately, the results of a study that revealed millennials are useless at basic skills like quantifying measurements and weights, rewiring plugs and reciting the collection times for their local post box (what’s wrong with Twitter?) did ring a bell.

There are apparently 40 things the over-55s can do better than my generation, and while not all of them apply to me as a 28-year-old – I can play chess (badly), use cutlery, tell the time (good parenting) and spot a blue tit in the back garden (thanks to my Aunt Kate)

– it’s a shame that we are letting so many useful skills be forgotten.

Our reliance on the internet has made us permanent pupils of Google and Youtube; apps like Taskrabbit let us outsource small jobs to other people, rather than having to work out how to fix broken bits and pieces ourselves. It’s an expensive way to live for a generation worried they will never get out of rental properties.

And quite aside from what it’s doing to our brains and memories, our dependence on tech makes us vulnerable. Consider the chaos that would ensue if a cyber-attack robbed Britain’s millennials of their phones. We couldn’t even make a fire without a Youtube tutorial.

Brilliantly, a couple of the things on the list, including baking, crochet, gardening and jam-making, have become fashionable among virtuous millennials in the past couple of years, but something shouldn’t have to become “woke” for us to want to learn how to do it.

Does adding up without a calculator have to become “cool” before we do it à la Rachel Riley? What about sewing buttons back on to clothes? Every time my boyfriend asks me to do that, I tell him not to be so “sexist” (mostly because I don’t know how).

But we are learning. I fixed a squeaky door the other day by rubbing the hinges with extra-virgin olive oil. I can change light bulbs and name a few flowers, all things we are supposed to be dreadful at. Time for some bigger stuff, I think.

“Do you think I’d be good at changing a car tyre?” I ask my boyfriend, who predates millennials. “You can’t drive,” he tells me.

“I know, but if I could drive,” I say in a don’t-beso-pernickety sort of way. “No,” he says.

Well, baby steps.