IS the Internet the plaything of the Devil? Britain's second highest-ranking churchman is worried that it may be.
Dr John Hapgood, the Archbishop of York, has warned of the 'devilish' potential of the international computer network.
He fears it could usher in 'a nightmare society' of 'a lot of self-centred individuals concerned only with their own fulfilment, sitting all day in front of their computer or television screens, and soaking their minds in increasingly violent and obscene entertainment'.
If Dr Hapgood is worried, some of his peers seem more relaxed.
The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury are both on the Internet, and have e-mail addresses.
THERE was a time in America when soap operas, filled with sun-tanned models acting out endless stories of flirting by a beach where nobody is over 30, were to be found only in the backwaters of daytime television.