What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you on holiday, asks columnist Alistair McNair.

Lost passport? Booked the wrong dates at the hotel? While I was in Kyiv recently, tragedy struck. I don’t mean the death of a relative. Not even a novel left behind in a train carriage – that would bring tears to my eyes. No, far worse – I dropped my phone. I took it back to my mother-in-law’s, tried enough different combinations of chargers and adapters to baffle Pythagoras, but I had to admit defeat. It wouldn’t charge. I tried again and again for hours. And again, just in case.

All my photos gone. Yes, I should have saved them to the cloud. A cloud so mysterious it makes the Transfiguration seem like a rainy day. All my apps – WhatsApp (all 27 accounts), NatWest, Tesco – gone. The one I missed the most – my pedometer. Not that I walk that much, 5,000-ish steps a day but I was trying to beat last year’s total. It was a close-run thing, pardon the pun. Messenger – how would residents reach me? I was trying to be on holiday so perhaps that was a blessing in disguise.

Of course, I still had my other, council-owned mobile phone. But I hadn’t been able to download Messenger on to it. I could only imagine the messages being sent to me – flooding, missed bins, fallen trees, bad parking, stray dogs.

And I only had 500MB of online data a day, being outside the EU. A measly six hours supposedly. How could I keep up my usual daily routine? First, the Daily Mail (how’s middle England feeling?), then the Guardian (what’s getting lefties down?), the Argus, The Spectator and residents’ comments on Facebook – all checked while performing my ablutions before going to work. And that’s not including my YouTube consumption... 500MB wouldn’t allow much of that. If phone usage had a BMI, I’d need a gastric band. I was facing a crash diet. And I only had one novel to last me, by the rakish philhellenist Simon Raven who would have had no pity.

What could I do with all this extra time? Speak to my wife? Watch Ukrainian TV?

I admit it – I’m addicted to my phones. I’m even writing this on a phone. I check Facebook multiple times an hour. But I’m not alone. Lots of us are addicted – the average time spent online is 24 hours a week.

Have you ever been sucked into the world of TikTok? One minute you’re watching a 20-second dance video, the next you’ve been watching dance videos for half an hour. What’s this doing to our brains?

What a wonderful mine of information the internet is. One of my favourite go-to people on YouTube is Professor Jonathan Haidt, who researches my sector of employment – the state of universities and student wellbeing. According to Professor Haidt, addiction to social media is ruining our children’s mental health.

The suicide rate for girls is up 60 per cent since 2013; 20 per cent for boys. It seems to be worse for girls because girls use social media far more than boys and generally believe what they’re told – they are harmed more by speech and words.

I can well understand that. When residents complain about you on social media it can be painful. Politicians need thick skins – children also need thick skins, but cognitively they aren’t ready.

Of course, we also use our phones for reading and writing. But how are we reading?

Reading on a mobile, while convenient, focuses on surface reading – skimming and scanning – and is interrupted by the constant pings of texts. Call it multitasking, but it’s not.

Reading any old physical book like Captain Corelli’s Mandolin forces linear reading which requires concentration, helps retention and allows time for the imagination to work. Yet often students are encouraged to read online and use apps to make learning “fun”. Why? Because they lack the concentration skills so need constant change, like a TikTok video – a vicious circle.

Now throw ChatGPT into the ring. It could have enormous ramifications for education – will anyone actually write their own essays any more? Will we all end up, like the shadow Chancellor, plagiarising others’ work because we won’t have the skills to write and think for ourselves?

Will we ban children under 16 from social media, as Professor Haidt wants? I doubt it.

We adults must realise the harm it’s doing to ourselves first. Maybe I’m speaking to the converted – you are reading The Argus after all. But my time is up. I’m off to collect my new phone with those floods of messages to catch up on.

Alistair McNair is the leader of the Conservatives on Brighton and Hove City Council