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Mobile Madness
All the news was bad.
'Three hundred and seventy three killed in Egyptian train blaze'; 'Fifty killed in Nepal bus accident'; 'Accused confessed to killing 15 young back-packers'; 'Mother accused of drowning her children in bath'; 'Attacked man digs his way out of his own grave'; and, from Lagos, Nigeria, a frightening story about a man who confessed to killing his boss, a forty-year-old mother of four, in a dispute over pay, then making pepper soup with her body.
Then I found the good news.
Eircell Vodafone has reported that more than 2,000 mobile phones are reported lost or stolen every week, and in Britain this figure stands at 1.3 million for 2001. Also, a new British survey has revealed that 600,000 mobiles were dropped down a toilet in the past year, while 400,000 fell into drinks and 200,000 were put into washing machines.
People also lose their mobiles by leaving them at the bar while they visit the john or set them on the roof of their car and then drive off (and often crash when they panic and realise that for the next ninety seconds they have nobody to talk to). I'm surprised at such carelessness because you wouldn't leave a child on the bar counter or on the car roof and, as we know, mobile phone users ga-ga into their surrogate babies, or send text messages through them, every one and a half minutes.
Ever heard anybody sitting on the toilet and phoning their girlfriend? I have - through grunts, followed by reams of toilet paper being tugged and a struggle with intransigent trousers and, while I'm sitting next door and afraid to move, the guy is shouting aloud all sorts of personal stuff.
I've seen people at a wake take a call, or playing a video game while walking in a funeral cortege. One minute you are listening to a moving homily, or sitting in cinema on the edge of your seat waiting for the most crucial detail of the murder mystery to be revealed, when a mobile with a signature tune of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' goes off. The owner either pretends it's not her phone, or brazenly answers it, despite the fact that the caller is ringing just to say that she'll meet her outside in ten minutes, as agreed two hours earlier. These devices have become so addictive and pervasive that I have no doubt that even during procreation people cannot resist the temptation to be on the phone. Soon children will be appearing called Motorola, Siemens and Virgin.
Italian researchers did a study. They took mobiles off 300 volunteers for fifteen days. Seven out of ten said they couldn't live without the device. A quarter said it made them feel impotent (they experienced a drop in their sexual confidence). Some of the other effects reported included loss of appetite and depression. Only 30% of the volunteers claimed they felt no effect at all, though I suspect they had a hidden device that they were using in the john.
Last October the 'Sunday Express' newspaper interviewed Tony Cornell of the Centre for Psychic Research who said that since mobile phones were introduced reports of sightings of ghosts have decreased substantially. 'Ghost sightings have remained consistent for centuries. Until three years ago we would receive reports of two new ghosts every week.' He complained that now, the centre receives none. Some experts believe that the electrical energy which produces some paranormal events is being interfered with by cell phones and the transmission of data by e-mail.
Never mind the poor ghosts but what about the effects of all that microwave radiation on human brains, especially on those of children whose skulls are thinner than adults? The University of Washington in Seattle discovered that radiation from mobile phones could split DNA molecules in rat brains - the kind of damage that in humans is associated with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
In Norway and Sweden researchers found that workers who used cell phones for over fifteen minutes a day were more likely to complain of fatigue and more likely to suffer headaches than those who used the phone for less than two minutes. Jim Mochnacz, a worker with BT for eight years, fell seriously ill with problems of memory loss, chronic tiredness, personality changes and a permanent ringing in his head.
'I couldn't wear a digital watch, the LCD display just faded away on my wrist. To stop my jaws clamping I had to have all my metal fillings removed… I'm convinced I've got microwave poisoning.'
Half the world can get by without the use of mobile phones. I do not own one and have no wish to. I am convinced they microwave your ears and make their users mad. An example: I complained to a friend who was talking into a mobile phone with one hand, rolling a cigarette with the other whilst steering with his knees that I felt he shouldn't be talking into a microphone whilst driving and he replied, 'Why not, helicopter pilots do.'
Another example. A few years ago there was a ginger-haired, bespectacled man, wearing a sash, running up and down the graveyard at Drumcree and angrily pointing his finger at RUC men whilst speaking into his mobile. That man is now First Minister.
I rest my case.
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© 2007 Irish Author and Journalist - Danny Morrison