THERE is a constant hum and chirrup of computers, phones and iPods in our house. All too often, when they’re not updating their Facebook status, or checking out those of their friends, the teenagers will be glued to a PlayStation game. Either that or walking around in a trance, plugged into an iPod, oblivious to everything going on around them.

They used to take cuddly toys to bed. Now it’s their Blackberries and iPhones.

Sometimes I dream of smashing the modem and disconnecting the Wi-Fi: “Why are you wasting time on the internet when you could be outside in the sunlight, meeting with friends, playing sport, connecting with real, live people, reading books...” I rail.

It’s not as if I don’t appreciate the benefits of the internet. I use it all the time myself. But there are times when it seems as if their virtual lives are about to consume their real ones.

I have the opposite problem with my computer phobic mother, who is in her eighties, and, despite all my persuasive arguments about how going online could enhance her life, doesn’t want to be drawn into our new electronic age.

Frustratingly, it is the elderly who use the internet the least, even though they have the most to gain from it.

The boys’ granny has children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in far-flung corners of the world. She could be talking to them, swapping photos and even videos over the internet.

At the click of a button, she could trace old school friends and work colleagues who she has lost contact with. She could enjoy social contact with friends she would not otherwise see, every day.

And, like so many elderly people who can’t get out and about easily to shop, she could buy everything she needs, from food to clothes to gifts and flowers online and have it delivered to her door.

When I visited her in Ireland recently, I brought my laptop and encouraged her to play about on the keyboard.

We went on to the BBC news site.

We looked up the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, where she used to work, and discovered old photographs and articles about its history.

We went on YouTube and found lots of archive films about our home town, with footage showing the flood damage of 1987 and news reels showing bombings and riots during the Troubles.

I showed her how we could watch favourite TV clips, such as Susan Boyle when she first sang on Britain’s Got Talent, again. And she discovered how sites like Wikipedia and Google could help her solve particularly difficult crossword clues.

Then her elderly brother and twin sister arrived: “Come and see this,”

she told them. “We’re twittering.”

We weren’t, of course. But at least she was making an effort to use the lingo.

I went on to the Google Earth site and we visited all their homes, along with those of other family members and friends. They were amazed. When I suggested that we visit my sister’s house in the Channel Islands, they were flabbergasted.

“Can it really travel all the way over there?” asked my mum.

“And what if I happened to be at the window or out in the garden when the camera went past our house? Would I appear on the internet?”

asked Auntie Betty.

I told her that she would, indeed, pointing out that, just that week, one man had been pictured sitting, rather improbably, stark naked in his car boot in his driveway.

The eighty-somethings all looked horrified. “And how many people have these machines?” asked Betty, looking increasingly worried, especially when I told her that most households are now on the internet.

But I had saved the best bit until last. I had arranged for the boys, all at home in North Yorkshire, to go on Skype so that we could video call them on the laptop.

GRANNY, Auntie Betty and Uncle Jackie could see them all in the kitchen at home and talk to them about their day.

Eleven-year-old Roscoe even took our laptop on a walkabout round the house, introducing them to everything from the cat to his new school blazer.

They all jumped when the 17-yearold, who had just arrived home, suddenly leapt up from the bottom of the screen and shouted “Boo!”

I suggested we call 19-year-old William, who is studying in Belfast.

Within seconds, he appeared on screen. “Ahhhhhh,” they all said, and we had a lovely chat. He told them how much he was enjoying it and what he had been up to.

“You haven’t seen where he’s living, have you Mum?” I said.

“William, why don’t you pick up your laptop and give granny a tour of your room?”

What followed was truly stomachchurning - mouldy cups, pizza cartons, piles of dirty clothes and no sign of a floor. I had to resist the urge to cover his granny’s eyes. It has been many, many years since she has seen a teenage boy’s bedroom.

Now the dark belly of the internet had exposed her to the horrors once more.

Perhaps it was a step too far. “I have really enjoyed it, but I think I’ll stick to the old-fashioned ways,” she said when we finally signed off.