EVERYWHERE I look I see people going about their everyday activities gawping into a rectangular object which spurts out a load of garbage informing them on what so and so is doing.

Then they receive a load of pop up adverts trying to sell them stuff based on what they had been browsing previously.

Increasingly, people are being sucked into spending so much time browsing stuff that is totally irrelevant and non-productive.

There are even adverts or articles which drag on for so long that people are prepared to watch the inane rubbish to see the end.

The intelligence of the human race is, in my opinion, declining to the extent that people cannot do mental arithmetic, cannot think for themselves and believe everything the data tells them.

A classic example of this is when people follow a satnav and end up somewhere unintended, like being stuck down a single track country road with nowhere to turn round.

While I am not against technology, I have always thought it should be used for productive practical purposes, like using Microsoft Office applications to enhance/improve the process of form filling, producing scientific data and reports/presentations.

It is surprising how many people these days do not know or appreciate the power of this ordinary software package.

But instead of improving our lives, the advent of social media has degraded the quality of life to the extent that people do not know how to verbally communicate anymore.

Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter etc have monopolised human interaction to the extent that people are controlled by them and they, religiously in many cases, believe everything that comes up.

People need to ask/challenge themselves by querying what have they achieved today.

They should also set themselves tasks to break away from the scourge of social media by thinking about how much time they are spending surfing and browsing with no productive results.

The inability of people to communicate has also led to the unproductive environment that exists today in the workplace.

Team work no longer exists and we end up with individuals not contributing toward the overall aims of a team due to “mini empires” within the workplace where everyone has their own agenda.

While I am spending time typing this, I am being productive by highlighting the above issues and expressing my opinion that social media is the root of some of the evil in the world and is contributing to the decline of the intelligence of the human race.

Colin Telfer, Darlington.