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One rookie error. After an uptick in email newsletters from a company I didn’t recognise, I clicked the unsubscribe link.

A split second after doing so, I recognised my mistake. I was confirming to the sender — probably a bot — that my email address was live. But by then, it was already too late.

Cue the non-stop tsunami of spam which immediately followed. Most of it heads straight to my junk mail folder, but not all.

Most of us have grown weary of these digital avenues we have woven into our lives. So fed up that we might just delete our email address for good, if only it were that simple.

There’s no guarantee that whatever privacy focused email provider that replaces it will not once more be exposed in the next great heist, then sold on the open market to cyber criminals.

I suppose this is why some people have an email address for signing up to things and another for the important stuff. It’s no real wonder that so many people treat their inbox like a black hole.

Daily, I dream of fleeing this digital realm. If only we could jump back to the 1980s. Sometimes, it seems that far from liberating us, these technologies are keeping us enslaved.