Are mobile phones turning us into dysfunctional zombies?

Everywhere I go I see people using mobile phones: as they walk along the streets; sitting on trains, chatting (“I’m on the train”); and, in one case I know, taking the phone into the bathroom when having a bath.

However, there are more serious consequences to using your mobile everywhere than irritating your fellow train passengers or dropping the damned thing in the bathwater. Almost every day I see people reading, or entering, text messages, or talking on their phones, as they walk along busy city streets. Often they are so distracted they bump into other people or step into the road without looking. I can’t count the number of times in the last year when I’ve been a passenger in a car and seen people, head down, staring at their phone stepping in front of us so suddenly we have to jam on the brakes to avoid hitting them.

Recently it was reported that a ten-year-old British boy was playing a game on his phone when out and, absorbed in it, he stepped straight into the path of a car. He died on the spot. We have clearly come to the point where many people are addicted to mobile phones and tablet computers. But how have we reached such a state of affairs?

Perhaps, like cigarettes, people can become physically dependent on mobiles. I’ve read that the microwaves mobile phones use can stimulate the brain’s pleasure centres in a similar way to alcohol or drugs. Example: the teenager who couldn’t sleep unless he had not one, but two, mobiles switched on in his bedroom.

Also, according to psychologists, some people need to feel, and look, important to boost their low self-confidence. One way to achieve that is taking or making a lot of phone calls in public. (“Look at me! I’m so important I can’t take a minute off; I have to be in contact all the time.”)

These may partly explain our addiction to mobile phones (cellphones), but the extent of it is a little baffling.

What is clear though, I think, is that we’re in danger of letting our mobiles turn us into dysfunctional zombies.