SIR – I had a rather worrying conversation with one of my work colleagues the other day, discussing why he needs to carry his mobile phone down to the workplace.

When I was 22, I did not even own a mobile phone, neither did most of the population at the time or before, and we managed to organise our lives perfectly well. We usually did this by communicating using other such long-outdated methods as talking face to face or using a pretty much defunct device called a landline telephone, or heaven forbid, a telephone box.

I have no wish to be part of a society that lives its life through a mobile phone. I am convinced that human beings will at some point evolve to have no speaking voice, just a series of grunts and no real hands, just pronounced thumbs so they can work their mobile phones. Even more worrying than the fact that they will have lost their primeval skills is the blatant disregard for any kind of authority.

Albert Einstein was known to be distrustful of the growth of technology on the human race and famously noted “it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”. Now there is a man who was way ahead of his time.

JULIE REYNOLDS

St John’s, Worcester