Mobile Phones: Pain or Pleasure? By Sandra Blemster

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Do you consider your mobile phone to be a pleasure or a proverbial pain, a help or a hindrance? Sandra Blemster investigates.

In recent years we have seen a little known fad sweep over the nation and take it over with fervent ferocity. The name of the culprit? Mobile telephones. And, I must admit, until recently, I was not a fan at all. Being a teenager of the 80's I remember mobiles were either something you hung from your bedroom ceiling next to your Wham poster (I kid you not), or were those gadgets that yuppies used to flash their wealth, along with their polished Porsches and Giorgio Armani suits. They were considerably bigger than our current beauties and looked very silly indeed. They'll never catch on (or so I thought). Ah, if only I'd known.

Picture it: there you are at the supermarket just loading up your trolley when you hear What d'you want for tea? Shall I get boil-in-the-bag or liver and onions? Which? No you decide. Oh, I'll get both.

We seem to have lost our privacy and the art of intelligible conversations. Call me a traditionalist but time was when people had discussions. You know where people spoke to each other face to face about issues. Now you're more likely to get a quick text message in pub, c u l8r m8 (that's later, mate to N.M.O.'s: Non Mobile Owners, a dying breed) and I'm on the bus/on the train/on my way becoming an oft heard mantra. The problem is we seem to have lost a sense of surprise. Picture it, there you are on the train from London going to visit your in-laws/parents etc (delete as applicable) who live miles away in someplace like Scotland.

The journey is well over eight hours long and you're really looking forward to seeing them. In the old days you'd have that strong sense of anticipation, of not having spoken to them for days, or at least since that stop at Birmingham two hours previously. But now you get I'm just approaching Carlisle, not far to go now. Really looking forward to seeing you. What's for tea? Oh, just nipping to the loo...hang on you can come with me. Ha ha.

Another irritation is ring tones: there you are on that train (being the only person who doesn't own a mobile) when four of the blighters start ringing at once just as you've started dozing off (around Crewe in fact). There's nothing more annoying than hearing Bob the Builder's Can We Fix It? ringing four times or Gerry and the Pacemakers You'll Never Walk Alone (you never will with a mobile!) And in terms of your love life they can be an interference. One woman in Chicago reported that she'd left her boyfriend because he called me up, like all the time. He used to use the cell phone to check up on me.

Of course other people have used mobiles to propose to one another but sadly they have also been used to dump as well.

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