"Young people are 'lost generation' who can no longer fix gadgets, warns professor"

Prof George said: “We’ve got a lost generation that has grown up with factory electronics that just work all of the time.

“All of these things in our home do seem to work most of the time and because they don’t break we just get used to them. They have almost become like Black Boxes which never die. And when they do we throw them away and buy something new.

“But there is now a big maker community who are thinking hard about what we do with all of these gadgets. They are remaking and repurposing things.

“I talked to someone who had used some LEDs on his bike so that he could put up a message as he was cycling.”