The average Briton now spends more than seven hours per day watching TV, texting and sending emails (Ofcom report).

Here’s an interseting idea from Delete by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, which has echoes with something said by Google recently. Once upon a time (i.e. 20 years ago) it was possible to wipe the slate clean in terms of reputation. People forgot things, you could move from one city or country to another and start afresh. But nowadays this is virtually impossible. The internet never forgets.

So how about the idea of being able to declare information bankruptcy. Something akin to hitting a re-set button and wiping the internet clean of any information or images relating to you.

I think it was the head of Google UK who said, very recently, that people should be able to get new identities once they reached 18 or 21 to escape from the amount of information avavilable about them online (including the searches they’ve done on Google I wonder

Nice idea, in theory. Of course, you could simply be a bit more careful about what you search for, write, download or upload in the first place.

Here are some interesting statistics. According to Peter Jones Department store in the UK, sales of white writing paper are up 102% against last year. Fountain pen sales are up 28%, ballpoint pens are up 36% and calligraphy sets are up 73%.

Now you could say that this is due to recession. People are trying to save money by writing letters rather than buying expensive greeting cards. I don’t think so. I think it’s a reaction against the sterility of email and texts. Paper is more tactile and more sensual and a handwritten notes says something than digital communication can’t.