If a time traveller from the 1970s were to arrive in the 2018, what would shock him or her the most? I would imagine that the smart phone would be high up on the list. No other innovation over the past ten years has changed the way we live so significantly.

Everywhere you look, you will see someone on their phone, as you literally have a computer in your hands. You can shop, surf, tweet as you have access to the world wide web. The time traveller would be astounded at the sight of men, women and children glued to these amazing devices.

This is the downside to the smartphone. We are now slaves to these devices. I have seen whole families seated at restaurants focused on their phones and not speaking to each other. I have seen mothers ignore crying children as the phone has become their primary focus. Needless to say, conversation or even acknowledge the presence of another person has become minimal.

We are social creatures by nature, but the smart phone has meant that we no longer take notice of each other, especially those closest to us. The phone has become the other husband/wife/lover/friend. I know some people who cannot put the phone down for a minute or they are constantly checking emails or texts. " I don't want to miss anything," is the usual response. The worst offenders are not children, but adults who behave like children when the smart phone is in their possession.

It is very rare these days to see people reading books on the London Underground. I remember seeing people reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in 2005 on trains. It was a popular thriller . Fast forward ten years and everyone is staring at a small screen on their phone. Is all this a sign of progress?

The time traveller may just return to the 1970s thinking that people in the twenty first century had turned into zombies. Would that be inaccurate?