Hello, are you mad??? Take your laptop down the pub??? Can I ask just which planet you are living on?

So you are in the pub with your laptop. First of all forget doing any work on it. You will be too busy trying not to hear the sarcastic remarks about how you think you"re "somat" from other customers.

Then, the local computer expert will come across and bore the crap out of you whingeing on about operating systems, (God help you if he is a Linux user) and about how notebooks are underpowered e.t.c. You get my point. If, like me, you use a Macbook, the problem is worse. Outright insults from Windows users will usually ensue.

But then, there is the problem of what to do with your laptop when you go for a refill. Do you leave it unattended on your table, or risk offending the people who have had a jar or two, and take it with you? Thus offending everyone by implying that they are all potential thieves?

Lets not even think about what you do with it when you need to visit the bogs...

Finally, and most important, what sort of person WANTS to take a laptop into a pub. You go into a pub to meet and chat with REAL people not some, so called, friend on a social networking site, who safe in the knowledge that you are never going to meet them has possibly lied through their teeth about themselves.

Maybe, just maybe, the Vicar has a point?

Cheers... Ish (Ishtiaq Ahmed)

Wall-o-text crits you for 999,999 damage.

Get a grip of life girl, shouting your thoughts through the interwebs wont make them more valid.

first, a word to "Maggie":

Writing in capital letters mean you are shouting, not talking. We don't need you to shout at us to make your point. But then again, enforcing one's view on others is second nature to Catholics, or any other major religion for that matter. The real paradox is that all religions claims to have the "only" truth. This absolute truth dogma has been the perfect recipe for 10 000 years of wars, beheading,white male absolute supremacy over female and colored people, and many other charming "my god is better than yours, so I will kill you" behavior. More people have been killed and/or savagely tortured in the name of god over the centuries than all other reasons combined. Just read some other books beside the bible's charming mythical fables, you will learn a thing or 2 about human history... You got that, Maggie?

Now to the text of the article itself. Religions elevated manipulation and truth twisting to a refined art. Their main ingredient? Fear, or course. The good old fear of hell and perdition. Now SMS will make you suicidal, don't you fear it enough to stop using it already???

Those are the same crazy fools who told us in the middle ages that masturbation would kill you. It culminated in 1844 with the publication of, and this is not joke, "The fatal consequences of masturbation" ( http://9gag.com/photo/71_full.jpg ). They didn't teach you anything. They didn't elevate you by means of empirical understanding. No, in order to impose their beliefs, they manipulated, to their own narrow and selfish need to dominate, the most basic instinct of all: Survival and fear of death. Once more, there are at it all over again with another spin of fear. Suicide this time. They were a joke in 1844, they certainly have no credibility left in 2009.

I have a message for you all "religious" folks out there. Keep you collective mental illness and delusion for yourself. This disease must be stopped, especially the affliction toward the young 5 to 10 years old children indoctrinated before they are old enough to make a real choice for themselves. Religions are still to this day a major source of discord on this planet. They provided nothing to enlighten people, only dividing them. Old, dusty and archaic dogma with recursive logic that lead to submission without asking a single question. That's the equivalent of self imposed slavery for the mind. Thanks, but no thanks...

You know what's cool about YOUR god? It is simply all yours. It is so YOUR god that you will keep it all for yourself and yourself only. It's gona be better for you, and most important, better for the rest of us, sane people, driven by self determination, empirical knowledge and critical thinking.

Ramon Zarat

The vicar (like so many of them) is utterly wrong. SMS and email are used (by me anyhow) to organise and poke each other to get off there asses and get to the pub! Not get them from the pub. Theres no better system to poke your friends into getting off there behinds to come for a pint than 20 annoying SMS bleeps at them.

WHAT BIAS AND ANTICATHOLIC ATTITUDE YOU DISPLAY? WHY NOT JUST REPORT THE PRIEST'S BELIEF. ANYWAY IT IS OBVIOUS THAT ALL THE NEW TECHNOLOGY DOES TAKE AWAY HUMAN INTERACTION- EVEN IF IT IS 10 YRS OLD. IT IS NOT ALL BAD OF COURSE AND CAN BE USED TO INCREASE COMMUNICATION TOO. A MEGATIVE REACTION IS WHEN A YOUNG ADULT CANNOT LIFT THEIR HEAD FROM THE SCREEN TO EITHER GREET PEOPLE OR HELP OUT AROUND THE HOUSE. FACEBOOK ADDICTION CAN OCCUR. ON A POSITIVE NOTE MY CHILDREN HAVE STAYED IN TOUCH WITH COUSINS AFTER A FAMILY TRIP AND HAVE ALL SHARED COMMENTS ABOUT A PHOTO. HOWEVER I DO NOT LIKE THAT MY PHOTOS ARE SHARED IMMEDIATELY BEFORE I EVEN HAVE A CHANCE TO SEE THEM. THE PRIEST IS CORRECT AND THEIR ARE MANY DANGERS-- BUT LOOK AT HOW EASY IT WAS FOR ME TO WRITE THIS-- IN THE OLD DAYS I WOULD HAVE TO TAKE OUT PEN AND PAPER AND THE CORRESPONDENCE WOULD NEVER OCCUR. WE ARE ON OUR WAY TO UNCHARTED TERRITORY WITH SOCIAL NETWORKING!

Given that sms messaging and the internet have been in popular use now for 10 years, I fail to see how anyone can make a link between this and the fall in custom at pubs. The dramatic fall in pub attendance has been noted since the supermarkets started selling very cheap alcohol, the smoking ban, and increased taxes on alcohol. People don't spend the time in pubs like they used to because they can't afford it and they can't smoke there!