Mobile telephones are a mixed blessing. Being in my mid fourties I am old enough to remember the days prior to the invention of the mobile. I vividly recollect feeding ten pence coins into bulky metal phones in bright red telephone boxes and, as technology advanced inserting pre-paid phone cards. It is perhaps a human trait to look at the past through rose tinted spectacles, to become all dewy eyed about the red telephone boxes which for decades where a familiar sight on practically every street of significance in the UK. It is doubtless easy to forget entering a phone box only to find that the receiver had been wrenched off by vandals, the glass had been smashed or both events had coincided to make the phone box unusable.

All of the above is true. I’ve been in phone boxes in which the receiver had parted company with the wire securing it to the handset and I’ve shivered in those tiny cabins due to the glass having been smashed. Consequently I am well aware of the benefits of mobile telephones not least as a means of contacting family or friends when one is running unexpectedly late or in case of emergencies, however the mobile is surely one of the most overused inventions (do I mean abused)?

A couple of weeks ago the British media was full of how a check-out lady in Sainsburys (a leading UK supermarket) had refused to serve a customer due to the lady holding a conversation on her mobile while, at the same time interacting with the shop assistant. The customer subsequently complained to Sainsburys, received an apology and was compensated with Sainsbury’s shopping vouchers.

I don’t condone the actions of the check-out lady. I can however understand her intense annoyance at the rudeness (doubtless unintended) of the customer who instead of interacting with her chose instead to split her attention between the person on the other end of the line and the shop assistant.

When I’m out with friends I often turn my mobile off so I can concentrate on interacting with them which is after all the whole purpose of socialising with friends.

At home I’ll frequently allow the voicemail on my landline to take calls when I’m writing or sometimes simply relaxing. Occasionaly I’ll interrupt voicemail and speak with the caller but by no means always. Technology should be our servant but we are in danger of allowing it to become our master.

I’ll finish with an incident from my own life. Yesterday I was meeting a friend for a meal in a restaurant some 15 minutes walk from my home. My friend kept texting me to say that she had arrived, did I mind if we ate in another restaurant, actually the other place was closed so should we go to an Italian restaurant etc, etc! I suspect that had I not stopped to answer all of my friend’s texts I would have reached the restaurant at least 10 minutes earlier than I in fact did! In the days before mobiles we would likely as not have met without mishap and much quicker as we wouldn’t have been messing around texting one another.

For the article regarding the incident in the supermarket please see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2353581/Sainsburys-customer-shocked-checkout-assistant-refuses-serve-mobile.html