The not-very-surprising survey result of the week: almost everyone is baffled by the technology on their mobile phone. The survey discovered that 85% of people find setting up and getting to grips with a new phone difficult, and 61% say it’s as challenging as moving a bank account.

I never thought I would be part of the 61%. My parents regard mobile phones in the same way 16th century Catholics regarded witches — they keep throwing them in the river. I, on the other hand, have always stayed on the cutting edge of technology. I survived the introduction of predictive texting. I grasped the concept of a cameraphone. If push came to shove, I could even video a happy slap. I would always be up to speed.

I was wrong.

In the past two years, two things happened in parallel that caused me to fall by the technological wayside. First, I got two years older. Second, they made mobile phones unfathomable.

It began with a Sony Ericsson that claimed it could store music like an iPod. I couldn’t make this happen intuitively and I couldn’t understand the instructions. I gave up. Then came another, slightly flasher version that could do the internet. I left it connected for a whole day by accident, received a bill the size of Burkina Faso’s GDP and, not stopping to note that I was becoming my parents, switched the phone off and put it in a drawer.

The Nokia N95 was the final straw. It was top of the range. Idiots were bidding hundreds of pounds for them on eBay, not just because of the slidey thing but because they had built-in GPS-tracking technology. At the touch of the button, it would find you, show you where you were on a digital map and then lead you to wherever you thought you were in the first place. Magic.

Except I never worked out which button. It would show me where I was on the planet but only on a scale of the whole planet. There I am, it would tell me, a dot on the planet. But try as I might, I couldn’t zoom in. Then the slidey thing broke. Then I put it in a drawer.

When the iPhone arrived, I went cold turkey. All around me, slightly younger people were doing amazing things with their iPhones. They were setting their video recorders . . . from the pub. They were sending work e-mails . . . from the pub. They were ordering takeaways . . . from the pub. But I knew it was over. After the N95, I went back to basics.

The 12-year-old phone flogger with his slick hair, his chewing gum, his large tie and his slip-on shoes with annoying little metal chains could not, like, believe it.

“You what, sir?”

“I’d like a phone with no music, camera, video, radio, internet. I just want to be able to phone people.”

“Say again?”

“Just a phone.”

“How about the NK90? It has a built-in personal trainer.”

“Nope.”

“What about the FZX80000? It can teleport humans from one end of the universe to the other. And it can store 500 hours of R&B.”

Now I have a pay-as-you-go phone that does nothing much at all and I love it. When I want to phone someone, I can. It doesn’t stop there: I’m going back to basics on cookers, microwaves, fridges, stereos and televisions as well.

New rule: if something has more than four buttons and one dial, it’s out. If that means buying a 1964 Morris Minor, so be it. I am not an astronaut and I am not a 12-year-old. I want low-tech, not high-tech. Anything that doesn’t comply gets thrown in the river.