Mobile phones have changed the limitations of time and space: we are never alone anymore What does it say about our culture that we will turn our phones off to go and watch a film, but not to spend uninterrupted time with a friend?
This story first appeared on the independent Internet magazine Hackwriters.com, which originates from Falmotuh College

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Is there anyone who doesn’t have a mobile phone these days? If so, they certainly don’t live in London. Walk down any street, sit in any park, or stand outside any station and all you see are people talking or sending text messages on their mobiles. Sit in any café or on any train, and all you hear are other people’s conversations and the ‘bleep bleep’ of new text messages arriving. And these people are only the ones who have their phones out at that particular moment: think of the countless more who have them in their bags, on chargers at home…

Once upon a time, mobiles were only really used by high-flying executives, yuppies, car salesmen and dodgy wheeler-dealers. The rest of us would tut and roll our eyes back when a phone would ring on the train and its owner would say in an unnecessarily loud voice ‘yes, darling, I’m on the train…’. Now however, no-one even bats an eyelid: they just carry on reading their papers, staring out the window, or (most likely) pick up their own phones and make a call, send a message, play a game, find out the football results, read their horoscopes – the possibilities are endless.

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