Techxit Britain

BT’s press office has reported some “worrying” findings as part of its Skills for Tomorrow programme, designed to “close the digital skills knowledge gap that exists between parents and children”. It found that a quarter of parents don’t know what TikTok is and over half of them need to ask their kids for tech-related help.

We’d like to ask BT why it thinks any self-respecting adult needs to know about TikTok. There’s nothing more unpleasant than watching grown-ups joining in with that.

But what’s so bad about parents seeking occasional advice from the first generation of humans to be brought up on smart technology? If you had a Spanish partner and you raised a bilingual child together, would Rosetta Stone come out to condemn you for sometimes consulting the kid on how to use upside-down question marks?

Not enough parents refer to Gen Z wisdom. It would be a blessing if we all lived in a Disney show where the youth ran everything and dismissed the guttural dying cries of sad old relics who need to be told what to do. Alas, we live on a P&O Britannia sail-away party, and the kids who use their apps to spot upcoming icebergs are cast out as traitors and made to walk the plank.

Let’s face it: if we ever have a referendum on the UK’s continued use of technology, Remain’s only hope would be the nation’s will to protect those Facebook pages full of memes about the past.