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Reader’s letter: I want to read my Bishop’s Stortford Independent on paper, not online




This reader’s letter from Kate Birbeck, who lives near Stansted, was first published on the Letters page of the Bishop’s Stortford Independent of October 16

I would just like to say a big thank you for producing the Bishop’s Stortford Independent in its physical form.

I like sitting in the evening by the fire, reading it from cover to cover, and my partner and I then have a taxing hour or two with your brilliant puzzles pages.

The articles are well written, and Jono Forgham’s Nature Notes articles make me want to dig out my walking boots and go exploring (has he thought about producing a book of his walks?).

My concern is that, reading between the lines of certain letters and articles during the last couple of weeks and looking at your constant adverts tempting people to sign up to receive the newspaper online, we will lose the wonderful physical copy.

Not everyone wants to live their life online and I would not read your paper if it was solely online.

We have an old computer (because we have to) but do not have smartphones, tablets, social media accounts, multiple computers or smart watches.

We receive all our local news from your newspaper and national and international news from the radio.

I’ve never streamed a blogchat or have any idea what WhatsApp is, and am quite happy with my life as it is/was.

However, in an age where apparently everyone has lots more choice, it seems I don’t have any choice about not accepting technology. It is being forced upon us whether we like it or not.

Banks are disappearing, phone boxes have gone, high streets are in decline and soon my old landline telephone will need a computer server to work. These are just a few things that until recently we all relied on but which are being eradicated by the tech giants.

As we have seen recently, these fragile computer systems can easily be hacked, corrupted or shut down, and this reliance on everything being online feels like mankind is building his house on a bed of sand.

Even Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield, the so-called ‘Godfathers of AI’, who have just won the Nobel Prize for Physics for their pioneering work in machine learning, are worried about where it is taking us.

by Ben Hewer, of Elsenham, a member of the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain
by Ben Hewer, of Elsenham, a member of the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain

In fact, I have this image of mankind on a go-kart plummeting down a steep hill with no brakes, whilst on the back all the tech billionaires and scientists are shouting “Don’t worry, we know what we’re doing, everything’s under control.” It’s a frightening thought. Have none of them seen Terminator?

Sitting in a café in Bishop’s Stortford last week, everyone walking past was glued to their phones. Even small children in pushchairs clutch a ‘My First Smartphone’ while their parents push them, looking at their own phones, completely oblivious to their surroundings.

Pensioners in their late 80s who lived through Hitler’s Blitz are convinced they need a smartphone to survive.

Even in the cinema I have to constantly ask people to turn off their phones. As soon as the credits come up at the end, everyone is immediately checking their phones.

Apparently, the average person checks their phone 144 times a day. It’s like a drug and I just don’t understand it.

Am I the only one to see the correlation between the increased use of online sites and the toxic world of social media, and the increase in mental health problems among teenagers and violence against women and girls?

Technology does have its place in, for example, the advancement of medical science, but do I really need a dishwasher that can connect to the internet? I do sometimes feel like the world has gone mad.

So please continue producing your wonderful physical newspaper and we will continue supporting you. It is a real lifeline to people such as us who don’t want to live their lives online – though, looking at the world today, I, as a woman in her early 50s, feel very alone in that idea. Thank you.

Kate Birbeck



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