Mal Fletcher considers the potential pitfalls associated with making devices an extension - or an integral part - of the human frame.

A few weeks ago, a leading British psychiatrist suggested that children as young as five years of age are exhibiting borderline autism-like symptoms. They are, he said, unable to read the subtle facial signals in normal human conversation because of their engagement with digital screens.

A range of studies, particularly in the USA, suggests that we are forming transactional relationships with machines. We do not remember what we learn on the internet as much as we remember where we found it, relying on the machine to store the details.

This of course means that what we read is not stored in long-term human memory and provides no benefit for producing future innovation.

The experimental research of leading neuroscientists such as Baroness Susan Greenfield is building the case for watchfulness when it comes to relying too much on digital devices.

Finally, implants raise important health issues. Research is still ongoing into the impact of chips on the development of certain cancers. To this point, studies have only been carried out on laboratory animals. Yet even now, as the Australian reported earlier this week, they point to links between chip implants and cancerous growths.

Technology is to be celebrated. There is no point in taking a luddite approach. Digital technologies have brought and will bring enormous benefits to the human experience.

That fact should not, however, make us oblivious to the potential pitfalls associated with making devices an extension - or an integral part - of the human frame.