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Then there’s the way mobiles affect our social interaction. Just because friends are physically in the same place doesn’t mean they will actually talk to each other. You see groups of people walking or sitting together, but all having separate conversations to other people on their mobiles. In Leicester Square the other day, I watched a couple obviously meeting for a date. The man was on his phone when the woman turned up, and, after nodding and smiling at her, carried on talking for another five minutes or so while she stood there looking awkward and self-conscious. It doesn’t matter if you’re having a few drinks with a couple of mates; if your phone rings then invariably you answer it and chat away to whoever it is who has interrupted your conversation. And, if you’re the one who’s been left staring into space and looking gormless, trying not to listen to every word of your companion’s conversation with someone else, what do you do? Pick up your own phone…

The omnipresence of mobiles mean that it’s much harder to focus on the present company, time and place without being interrupted by ridiculous ring tones and ‘bleep bleep’s. The fact that so many people have the same phones and alert tones also means that we are constantly checking to see if it’s our phone or someone else’s ‘bleep bleep’-ing or sounding the Star Wars theme tune. Nevertheless, however annoying we all admit it is, we are still increasingly reluctant to actually turn our phones off – what if someone wants to contact us and can’t get through?

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