I'm so addicted to email, Facebook and Twitter, I have to hide it from my wife

Only connected: while writing this article, James Delingpole looked at 51 emails, joined a Facebook debate and checked his Twitter pages Photo: Eddie Mulholland

A friend of mine was driving his family back from their half-term hols in Cornwall and the journey was taking far longer than it should. Two hours in and Tom's fingers were starting to twitch. After four hours, he'd had enough.

"What are you doing?" said his wife Kate.

"Er just, you know, um checking my emails," said Tom.

"But we're ...