Simply Smith

You would think, wouldn't you, that with all the world events that are taking place: the anniversary of Princess Diana's death, President Clinton's problems, the USA's recent bombings of Khartoum and Afghanistan, and so on, that there would be no shortage of things about which I might have opinion.

But, two items of perhaps lesser news on the inside pages caught my eye earlier this week. Each concerned a different aspect of the same issue but, at the same time, highlighted problems that should cause not a little anxiety.

How many times have you been in a large gathering when, at a particularly crucial juncture the insistent whining of a mobile phone interrupts the proceedings. Not only that, but pandemonium ensues when half the audience searches handbags, bum-bags and coat pockets to extricate the offending machine.

How many times have you seen drivers with their ear stuck to a mobile phone staring glassy-eyed at an accident waiting to happen?

The first of these items of news announced that mobile phones have finally penetrated the underground train, that last bastion of mobile phone silence. Now, even there, the tinny, rasping cacophony has finally conquered.

Add to this the ever present personal stereo and mankind has at last succeeded in isolating himself both from his peers and his immediate environment.

Have we eliminated smoking only for another kind of pollution to assail our senses?

Now the ultimate in isolation mentality. A Scandinavian company has developed a plaything for three-year olds with an in-built mobile phone. The cuddly toy will respond to the child's voice and activate its absent parent's mobile phone.

What an abrogation of parenthood! All the child has to do is say 'Mummy' and he or she will hear the mother's voice at the other end. This toy will be presumably targeted at yuppy parents with highly-paid City careers and designer children.

Not surprisingly, education experts are very concerned at this development. One is quoted as saying that 'this is a dangerous extension of the umbilical cord'.

I have to say that children deserve better than this. A child is not an Internet pet. A cuddly toy with Mummy's voice is no substitute for a cuddly Mummy.

Despite what I have said I believe that the sensitive development of the mobile phone can be of benefit: it allows us to contact others quickly and efficiently, industry could not survive without its obvious advantages and many a person in a car break-down situation must have reason to give thanks for its invention.

But, please, let's be sensible about it. A child doesn't need technology packaged in a lifeless panda or teddy bear, a child needs a warm, breathing parent close at hand to comfort in times of distress, to encourage those first faltering steps and to respond to first unintelligible words.

Might I make a final plea to mobile phone holders. You are not the slave to this machine, it is your servant and, as a servant, it should know its place.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.