Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, criticises "digitally addicted" web users who are being consumed by misinformation and ignorance.

He attacks the "endless digital forest of mediocrity as websites such as MySpace and YouTube take up more of their time".

I don't think I would go as far as Mr Keen, after all, there are countless websites which are informative and, no doubt, there are many kids regularly referring to them.

I wonder whether young people today are spending more mindless hours on mediocre websites today than when we were listening to mindless pop music on the radio for hours on end in my generation.

The web has done wonders to help people save money, whether it be booking a holiday or on-line shopping.

That is good and bad news. Good that people can save money, bad it can encourage people to spend more than they would otherwise.

One thing's for sure, the internet is not doing much to help the environment. Instead of people going to town centres to shop, they are going there to window shop and then returning to their computers to see whether it's cheaper on line.

Inevitably it is, and then it has to be driven to customers' homes. Have you noticed the proliferation of vans there on the roads these days? The number has boomed and I'm sure the reason for that is the mass of goods being ordered on line and being delivered.

This is certainly an own goal as far as the environment is concerned.
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