That’s how I truly feel…I absolutely detest the damn things. They interrupt conversations, distract people who should be serving you in a shop, turn teenagers into text-addicts and have become a weapon to use to record vile assaults on innocent people. I don’t own one and never intend to, my life has progressed this far without one thankyou and I refuse to join the rest of the population in their ignorant mobile-phone-habits. Their usage also has tragic consequences. One lifeguard at a public pool in Dublin was so engrossed in his texting that he failed to keep his attention on members of the public swimming and did not notice a ten year old boy drowning. This man was the only lifeguard on duty – a bad thing in itself – and so should never have had the thing in his hand in the first place. The little boy drowned and could have been saved had this lifeguard had his attention where it should have been.

Then take the recent hideous case of the Paedophile Mum Vanessa George; she used her mobile to record her vile acts of abuse on her young charges at the nursery she worked in. It has been said she had the phone out in the toilets of the nursery with the children in full view of other members of staff…and nobody said anything! and how many cases of violent bashings and sexual assaults have been committed and recorded on mobile phones by thugs…? too many to name and it is a terrifyingly growing trend.

Of course you cannot ban the things because they do serve a purpose when used as a phone and nothing more, however there have to be some rules introduced for the future so that lifeguards are not obsessing over text messages while children drown in front of them and so that paedophile nursery workers cannot use them to record their vile deeds. But I really have to ask – why do these phones need a camera as well…?