Gaby Hinsliff makes a good case for preserving “human connection” in our public lives (The people have spoken – and they want to speak to real live humans, not a rail ticket self-service app, 28 July). Along with the loss of human faces, rapid automation also results, increasingly, in a loss of humanity – those codes of behaviour that acknowledge the sensitivities and needs of those with whom we interact.
As we rush to treat all human interaction as transactional, in a business sense, ironically the human dimension that commercialism mistreats becomes a factor that it uses to gain a market advantage, for there has never been a time when customer service and feedback has been more in demand.
But there is an even more significant, if unacknowledged and bitter, irony in our rush to dispense with human labour: in a world that we are busily depleting of its natural resources, the one “resource” that is plentiful is people. Can we not see the advantage in that?
Paul McGilchrist
Cromer, Norfolk
• Gaby Hinsliff is right, up to a point: we are social animals, and our intellectual development and mental health depend on regular – banal – social interaction, in person. Research has shown that social media is no substitute.
The long-term, low-grade mental ill-health that affects increasing numbers of the working age population is primarily a symptom of isolation. Each new smartphone app, self-service checkout and junk food delivery service worsens our collective health and will, eventually, impoverish and debilitate us. This isn’t just about buying railway tickets: it’s about the purpose and necessity of society to human beings.
Michael Heaton
Warminster, Wiltshire
• When I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, I travelled by train from London to a friend’s wedding in the Scottish Highlands. On the way back, the train pulled into the town of Pitlochry and an announcement was made: we would stop here for 10 minutes. I decided to go for a short walk along the platform. Instantly, the train doors shut behind me and it pulled away – with my sleeping husband, phone, wallet, etc inside. I ran after it banging on the window but it continued on its way southwards. I looked about and there wasn’t another soul on the platform.
As I considered whether to laugh or cry, I made my way towards the ticket office, hoping against hope that there might be someone there (it was a Sunday). Miraculously, there was. He radioed Scottish Rail to confirm that the wrong announcement had been made, and they agreed to pay for a taxi to Perth and to inform my husband to alight there.
While I sometimes wonder what my new life as a single mum in Pitlochry might have been like, I’m rather glad the ticket office was staffed.
Abby Semple
London
• Of course Gaby Hinsliff is right that closing ticket offices on railway stations is unfair to people unable or reluctant to use online facilities or machines, and indeed any passenger needing advice or help.
But it’s more than just an inconvenience. Abandoned and desolate railway stations will potentially be dangerous, threatening the safety of women and children travelling alone. All cuts are an attack against women.
Angela Singer
Cambridge
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