SIR – It seems to me that while modern technology such as mobile phones, laptops, etc, facilitate instant communication, even across the world, it has many more disadvantages.

No longer can one easily strike up conversations on park benches, in a bus queue or on a train journey because that device designed to enhance communication actually gets in the way of doing so with those around you.

The instant and convenient nature of e-mailing has all but done away with the once much anticipated romantic letter from a distant girlfriend/boyfriend.

When eager tweeters pump out instant updates on a major trial or tragic event, the waiting world is given no time to take in the enormity or gravity of that event, or to properly grieve, as their emotional responses are rapidly overtaken by the latest twist or turn announced to the world.

But those are only some of the disadvantages.

How many have been bullied by young people using their mobile device and the whole sick incident shared with a waiting community?

How many more robberies have taken place, where the mobile device is the real target?

For my money,I’ll have the technology of the 60s or 70s which, while not pretty, made us all a deal more sociable.

WILL RICHARDS

Malvern