His quote came to mind following the recent Canberra shenanigans that led to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull banning MPs having sex with staffers and Nationals’ MP, George Christensen, using Facebook to post a picture of him holding a handgun with a caption that referred to “greenie punks”.

Mr Turnbull might have been better advised to ban MPs from using social media altogether and communicate more directly with each other and their constituents.

Apart from the fact that an Army officer made the column aware Christensen would probably have smashed his thumb had he pulled the trigger because he obviously was unaware how to hold the weapon, the prank only brought him down to the level of those he was criticising.

There is no doubt at all that cyberspace and most forms of interconnected technology will further change our lives (in many cases for the better) but as Hoult quite wisely suggests, there are other occasions when we should focus “on the immediate world (and people) around us”.

This was also vividly portrayed by Fairfax journalist Greg Callaghan in his column Spotlight in a recent issue of Good Weekend under the heading, The Walking Dead, which exposed smartphone-addicted pedestrians (now referred to as “smombies”) to put their lives at risk whenever they cross a road, often on a marked crossing.

Callaghan highlighted the case of the young woman last year who happily began crossing a busy Sydney street, immersed in her smartphone, when she was hit by a car which had surged forward when the traffic lights turned green. Thrown under the car the young woman luckily emerged with minor injuries.

The accompanying picture in support of Callaghan’s column taken at a city pedestrian crossing showed five people engrossed in their smartphone oblivious to anyone or anything around them. It is not, however, only on the roads that the “smombies” are a menace; pedestrians are in danger of getting bowled over by them as they charge forward on the footpath engrossed in their technology with nary a care for the elderly or youngsters in their path.

Not for too much longer though if our state governments follow the example set by Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu, as Callaghan explained in his column. There, spot fines up to $100US (and known as the Distracted Walking Law) are imposed on pedestrians using their mobile telephones while crossing the street.

Callaghan wrote: “The (law) comes in response to a pedestrian accident rate that has risen between five and 10 per cent in the USA, Britain and Australia since 2010, following years of steady decline”.

Callaghan wrote that using a mobile phone while driving can increase the risk of a collision four-fold and that texting is even more dangerous than being on or above our 0.05 threshold for drink driving; according to Professor Tim Horberry of the accident research centre at Monash University.

According to Callaghan, even the Pedestrian Council of Australia wants a minimum penalty of $200 for “smombies”. If you think that is tough consider the latest figures found that pedestrians account for one in seven road deaths in NSW.