I do some de-teching.

I saw de-teching named as one of the things to watch in 2011 in some article or other. Actually, it might have been on a website, ironically enough. I have felt ahead of the times, having thought about de-teching for at least several weeks before 2010 came to a close.

The big plan has started to take shape, however - my smartphone has been chopped in for a pay-as-you-go flip phone (for no other reason than I want to look like Agent Gibbs off NCIS when I hang up - slapping a phone shut has much more of a pleasing sense of finality than pressing a button) - and a tablet. The tablet in particular might be considered as re-teching, or up-teching or whatever the opposite of de-teching is, but so far I have been too nervous to use it in public for fear of being outed as an obvious twat. Job done.

My smartphone used to make me nervous, put me on edge - constantly checking for updates, things, information, contact, replies and mentions. Personally I hope that the de-teching phenomenon becomes a thing, spreading across the world and putting to an end the incessant and disturbing voracious desire for constant news.

Raoul Moat might be seen as the point when that culture jumped the shark - an epic display, an orgasmic fiesta of 24-hour-news-fuelled hysteria. The whole situation got worked up into such a frenzy that the final evening became an actual substitute for light entertainment, a venue in itself and not a source of information about other things. It was disturbing, and I was sat the whole time with my laptop on websites, telly on BBC News 24 and phone on twitter, gobbling away.

I have become a more mature individual since then, weaning myself off an addiction to news. I have recently started reading actual books, sitting in my room with simply a lamp switched on and nothing else. The silence is both disturbing and comforting - I could even get used to it. As you unplug from mass culture, that bubbling miasma, you start to feel healthier, as if breathing fresh air in the countryside - gosh, you can almost lift your soul to your ears and hear the waves crashing.