ISN'T it just typical? The week I learn to send text messages some boffin reveals that texting can be more than twice as bad for your brain power as smoking cannabis.

Scientists found a noticeable drop in IQ among employees who are constantly distracted from what they are doing by checking and sending messages. They lose concentration and their minds are in an almost permanent state of readiness to react to 'always on' technology instead of focusing on the task in hand. Apparently, those who constantly stop what they are doing to respond to a text, or an e-mail, suffer similar effects on the mind to losing a night's sleep, research found.

Well, I must admit, after getting to grips with texting after years of abstention (voluntary, I might add), I have to agree with these findings.

Take the other night. I was fully embroiled in a crucial activity when the shrill ring of my new phone (a present from my friend who has a fancy new one) alerted me to an incoming text.

Unusually, I was not taking part in a high-powered meeting of senior executives, nor was I immersed in a possible board room takeover. But it was an important activity all the same. I was tackling the mountain of ironing that had piled up in the corner of the kitchen when a friend sent me a message about a TV programme that I had (by phone) recommended she watch earlier that evening.

I was about to iron my husband's shirts when it rang. I leapt up to respond, excited by the fact that I knew what to do to read the message and to send one back.

The process took a while: all that pressing of buttons, back spacing and deleting when I made a mistake. By the time my reply was ready to send back almost an hour had passed and it was midnight. Should I send it? I mulled this over for ten minutes before deciding to add an apology (another ten minutes) and press ahead. She replied saying that she was not in bed and the time was no problem.

After such a carry on, I felt too tired to do any more ironing. Not only was it left in a heap, I nearly forgot to turn off the iron. How scary. Texts are not only bad for the brain they could damage your health, possibly for ever.

I can't deny that I love my new phone. It is 100 times lighter than my old 'house brick' model for a start, and much faster and easier to use. I am eternally grateful for it. But, as for becoming a text fiend, I can't see it. My friends tap away like stenographers. They are constantly at it - at home, in the park, in the street. Like a couple of teenagers.

And that's how I see it. If I were a teenager, I would probably love it, chattering away to mates like I used to on the phone. But now I feel silly, head bowed, staring at a gadget held between busy fingers as if I'm using a Game Boy or some other mindless computer handset.

Plus, it interrupts normal life. As the research discovered, whatever we are doing stops when a text come in. Even if you are tempted to ignore it, curiosity always wins.

Don't people need a moment to themselves any more? More to the point, isn't all this pressing of buttons threatening the art of conversation? It didn't take me long to conclude that I'm a talker not a texter. And I don't use my mobile much for that either.

Updated: 09:17 Tuesday, May 03, 2005