A friend of mine recently had her phone stolen. She had just returned from some time away and was caught unawares at the airport.
The loss threw her life upside down for a few days until she got a replacement.
It’s only when such unpleasant things happen that it becomes apparent how dependent people have become on mobile phones and other technology.
Walking along the street people are engrossed in their phones. Some are so much in the virtual world that they physically bump into others in the real world.
How long before a generation arises that can only communicate by phone? It is not an unusual sight to see a group of people meeting socially together, sitting at a table, all on the phone - supposedly not to each other!
There was a recent interesting comment from writer and comedian Ben Elton, who said smartphones had stolen children's childhoods. He has a point.
Maybe the effort of some schools to ban mobiles in school is an effort to reclaim some of that childhood.
That is not to say that the mobile phone is not a fantastically useful device that has revolutionised the way we live.
But has it not also fostered a strange dependency?
In the days before mobiles (yes, there was a time), people could go out, navigate their way around and come home without the phone. Now, separation from the device seems to have a traumatic effect on many.
The mobile is not going away and nor should it. But the push to have everything on the phone is maybe going a bit too far.
The phone gives access to services and information but a rush to only on-phone info will exclude some people.
Some people refuse to have phones. I have to admit to a sneaking admiration.
But what happens to such independent spirits as phone dependency increases?
There is talk of phasing out landlines. Where does that leave these mobile-free people? My friend, who lost her phone, doesn’t have a landline - the absence, makes the feeling of being isolated and cut off all the greater without the mobile.
Landlines must stay. We all also need a break from the phone and maybe other technologies. It must be good to zone out for a while now and again.
Why not make some person-to-person contact, not always via phone? To paraphrase the old BT advert, it's good to talk but add in a person.
- Paul Donovan is Labour councillor for Wanstead Village ward, Redbridge Council and a blogger (paulfdonovan.blogspot.com).
