The intensified push towards becoming a Smart Nation has to be selective and carefully calibrated, instead of being a blind rush just to make us look smart and advanced.

An experience like Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say's in Shanghai should not be a reason to speed up the "smartification" of Singapore (When Lim Swee Say felt like a 'suaku' paying cash in Shanghai; Aug 21).

We should embrace and harness technology to truly better our lives, and not just to make us appear technologically "hip".

If we rush to embrace technology, we could stand to lose a lot of tactile experiences that come with handling physical objects.

Whether the elderly would be able to easily adapt to such a technological transformation is another question.

More importantly, a highly digitised country is an attractive target for cyber hackers.

No matter how robust a system may be, there are bound to be loopholes that hackers will be able to exploit. Such attacks will completely paralyse the country and hold us to ransom.

Countries with highly digitised societies will rue the day they went completely cashless when their people cannot pay for even a plain bun because of an all-out vicious cyber attack on their economy.

Wendy Yuen Woon Yoke (Ms)