Technology: When it all gets just too much

Three out of four people think modern life is too complicated and that unnecessary complexities make it a misery, according to a survey done for Abbey National bank. Tasks such as putting together furniture, programming a video recorder or reading a timetable were putting people's backs up. In addition, people had just as much trouble finding the time to get on with these tasks in the first place.

Even news items caused problems: 50 per cent of those questioned found the single European currency too confusing to make sense of; 43 per cent found the Millennium computer bug impossible to understand, and 27.3 per cent could not grasp the fundamentals of BSE.