How Grand Theft Auto prevents crime and violence

It was about a week ago, at 8 p.m., when our blackout happened. In the 1980s people would have headed for the bedroom or out to loot the local off-licence. In 2013, however, our first reaction was to check the battery health of our mobile phones.

This relationship between sex, crime and consumer electronics may be important. The recorded fall in sexual activity among those aged 16 to 44 in the recent National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles was widely attributed to the ‘growth in social media’ and to our new habit of taking smartphones and tablets to bed. Plausible as this sounds, I don’t think the survey proves any such causation. It might be an effect of multi-channel television. Or perhaps the sequential adoption by women of Crocs, Ugg boots and the onesie during the period of the survey has led to a collective national detumescence.