Going cashless: the buck stops here

In the UK, a leading personal-debt charity, Credit Action, says that average household debt, excluding mortgages, was £7,982 at the end of 2011.

Add a mortgage to that and it’s little wonder so many people use one card to pay off another in a vicious cycle of deferred payments. Many, in desperation, turn to payday loan companies that charge enormous interest rates for short-term loans.

We've already ceded many of our spelling skills to predictive text - despite the frustrations it often inspires - and our navigation skills to the satnav.

At the same time, we're moving into the age of the micro-brand, in which individuals are able to replace the 'real me' with a constantly reinvented avatar-self, which can represent them in all their cyberworld interactions.

We see the beginnings of this in the way many people use social media, often developing personas that hide difficulties beneath a positive facade.

A 2013 study showed that Facebook use can increase levels of depression, even in mild users. Some experts believe that this is the result of unreal expectations, created when people measure themselves against the seemingly trouble-free lives of others as depicted in the social media space.

It sounds desirable, yet studies reveal that multi-tasking is only helpful in very short bursts. Over longer periods, it increases mistakes and lowers productivity.

Meanwhile, as we depend upon Siri-driven, wave-and-pay machines to sort through everything from our diaries to our transactions, what will happen to our sense of self-reliance?

Perhaps most importantly, what will our growing reliance on digital technologies do to our ability in interpersonal relationships? Will our skills in reading subtle facial signals, for example, atrophy if we rely ever more heavily on human interaction via screens?

Again, there is no suggestion here that we should meet the ongoing digital revolution with panic or blind anxiety.-->

Cash has been under threat since Diners Club introduced the first universal credit card in 1950. Yet for all the success of ubiquitous credit and debit cards and mobile digital gadgets, cash has clung on, for good reasons. We shouldn't surrender them lightly.