For some years now Private Eye’s ‘Dumb Britain’ section has been regaling its readers with examples of contestants giving ridiculous and risible answers to questions on television quiz shows. You know the kind of thing, the fabulously stupid things people say when asked, say, who succeeded Henry VIII as the king of England – with David Lammy on his 2008 Mastermind appearance responding ‘Henry VII’.

It’s no wonder you see people neurotically clutching these devices all hours of the day

It’s no wonder you see people neurotically clutching these devices all hours of the day

Yet we might not be laughing for much longer, and Private Eye might be forced to jettison that column altogether, if we are to believe Jeremy Vine. Writing in the new edition of Radio Times, the former Eggheads presenter warns that the television quiz show’s days are numbered, because the smartphone is killing off our willingness or capacity to retain information and store general knowledge.

The forthcoming demise of the TV quiz show format, cautions Vine, will be symptomatic of a far greater and graver malaise. ‘The more we lean on smartphones, the dumber we become,’ he writes. ‘For people born after 1990, the idea of knowing something is the same as knowing where to find it. Extend the........

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