Mal Fletcher analyses the problem and suggests some answers.

The "addict" was the slave. In our relationship with technology, each of us must decide - and train our children to decide - who is the master and who is the slave.

From time to time, as a personal "sanity" check, I ask myself this question: "If my computer or smartphone broke down tomorrow, would I still have any friends?"

Having reassessed, we might be well advised to re-boot, to disconnect from some digital attachments for a set period.

Some people do this via digital fasts. They remove themselves as much as possible from personal digital engagement - that is, beyond its use in the workspace - for a set period.

Some fast for one day a week, others for a week or longer. The idea is simply to slow the process of degeneration in thought process, allowing time for reflection.

The philosopher and psychologist John Dewey wrote that we do not learn from experience, but from reflecting upon experience.

A study conducted by the University of California revealed that short periods of reflection can boost productivity by up to 40 per cent.

A global survey in 2017 suggested that the average time spent online is 135 minutes per day - that number has jumped 67 per cent in just the past five years.

We need to give our brains time and space to connect and make sense of the plethora of ideas we read and hear every day.

Having re-booted, we can reconnect with the digital, while setting better limits for our engagement.

We should do this while prioritising human contact so that we practice old-school biometric reading - reading faces more often than we do screens.

In the process, we can reduce the number of conversations we have which are mediated through screens.

Holding a conversation is a little like playing catch. When a person throws a ball, they will do so in quite a distinctive way. Each individual puts his or her own individual spin on the ball, in much the same way that we each walk a little differently.

In conversation, I will throw an idea to someone else, who will then throw it back to me with their particular spin applied to it. This is how innovation is often born. New ideas are born out of connections between old or existing ideas.