YP Letters: Learn the basics before technology takes over

Goods inside one of Amazon's distribution warehouses.

WHEN my kids were little, I told them that they could have calculators – but only after they had learned to do their sums the old-fashioned way.

This illustrates a point which Jayne Dowle seems to have missed (The Yorkshire Post, January 28). It’s not a matter  of what she calls the “high  moral ground”, it’s the duty of a parent to make sure that children – who are not yet fully formed into the adult stage of their development – learn the basics which will equip them for life before allowing them to jump, unprepared, into the digital deep end. You wouldn’t give a boy a Ferrari as his first car would you?

Jayne, I don’t look at my mobile phone for days, sometimes weeks and I watch EastEnders when it’s transmitted. Yes, I use Amazon to buy things, but I don’t feel in the least bit guilty about it, being aware from quite an early age that it’s also possible to buy stuff from shops in the High Street. Using money. On-line shopping is not part of my social psyche, it’s just a transient convenience.

My worry is that children these days are becoming so fixated on the latest gadgetry that if the day ever comes when that oh-so-vital satellite falls out of the sky, they won’t be able to cope.

If that’s the “high moral ground”, then so be it.