Far from encouraging the younger generation to adopt an increasingly idle lifestyle, it appears that the high tech communications revolution is having spin-off physiological benefits for today's kids.
Researchers have found that youngsters whose hands are more accustomed to holding mobile phones and games consoles than bicycle handlebars or tennis rackets are developing increasingly dextrous thumbs. The extra strength of these digits is leading to their increasing use for tasks that would traditionally have been performed using the index finger, such as pointing or ringing doorbells.
Experts claim that using the thumbs for keying in text messages and e-mails and for accessing the Internet is bringing about physical alterations that previously happened over generations. But can this development really be viewed as progress? Quite the reverse, it seems to me.
A generation that has regressed to the point where it is finding difficulty in interacting face-to-face with others of its species, that communicates using a series of unintelligible grunts, whose written communication has been reduced to a series of shorthand symbols and icons, and whose thumbs are coming to bear and increasing resemblance to those of its ape-like ancestors would seem to be turning the theory of evolution on its head.
Eat your heart out, Darwin.