This week I took my young lad camping and surprisingly I was actually taken aback about how quickly he could adapt to not being with an i-pad and technology of any kind.

We tend to think we are different because we grew-up in an age when I wanted to speak to someone I would knock on their front door rather than drop them a text on WhatsApp.

As soon as you take away technology some of us of are truly helpless. But I do think it should be a necessary arrangement for all kids. We take away the i-pads and the PlayStations for a few days and let them decide what to do with their time.

It actually does make one a more rounded individual.

There was a time when our parents wanted to us watch less TV and we find ourselves wanting the kids to watch more TV and spend less on their i-pads.

It is best to do this when they have to find other things to do in the middle of nowhere. Although this camp site wasn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere as we had a farm nearby and fresh running water.

On the whole though he seemed to survive just fine after the first hour and realised that there is life without the game ‘Fortnite’.

I did think he would not be able to hack it. But alongside his friends seemed almost relived there was no need to log on to games and try to beat imagery targets that have no real relevance in the real world.

I think there is a real pressure in trying to beat scores and collect new and improved weapons in some of these games.

After a game of cricket and trying to figure out that boiling water on a fire is not as easy as it looks I think he took to camping quite well.

The only problem I have with camping though is that it is not real camping. Real camping should involve being stuck on a mountain with no mobile data.

I had thought when told ‘we were going camping’ this is where we would end-up.

I agree gaming can be quite addictive. I used to be addicted to a video game named ‘double dragon’ when I was a kid. It costs 10 pence to play and followed the story of a guy (or two guys if your mate was playing) who needed to ‘clean-up’ some nasty folk in his neighbourhood

I guess things haven’t changed that much.