There has never been a more powerful narcotic than the digital device. The allure of gossip, click bait and games designed as devious compulsion loops are hard to resist. And increasingly, we simply don’t. Radio took 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million. Pokemon Go did it in just 19 days. So when is interaction simply addiction?

Ask someone to picture AI, and they will most likely think about Terminators, psychotic fembots or angry robots from Hollywood central casting. But what makes AI actually frightening is not that it is ‘sci-fi’, but the that it is, in fact, already deeply embedded into our daily lives. If you have a child born post 2007, chances are that they have already been shaped by algorithms and digital platforms.

I am not entirely sure how it happened — but somehow in the last few years, I lost my connection with music. It could have been any number of things: throwing out my CD covers after I had ripped their insides, discarding playlists whilst moving between computers, a brief but horrific dalliance with iTunes Match or surfing the banal infinitudes of Spotify. Whatever the reason, the result was unequivocal — I had stopped listening to music, and had started consuming it.

The 21st century is a wonderful time to be a kid. Never has so much information, entertainment and wonder been so readily available to any child with access to a connected device — it is, in other words, a tough time to be a parent. Technology dominates our adult work and personal lives, but what role should it play in childhood and learning?

The first time I heard the phrase, everyday carry, I was certain it must be a term of endearment used by gun aficionados to describe a favoured firearm. But no, there are actually entire online communities dedicated to what they lovingly label ‘EDC’, or the eclectic assortment of objects and tools that men choose to stuff their pockets, pouches and satchels with.