Mobile programme: postscript

The family depicted in Channel 4's programme yesterday (Can you live without...your mobile?) owned between them a grand total of 10 mobile phones, and claimed to spend an average on £320 per month *each* on their phones. That's a mobile phone bill of over £2K per month for father Steve. Stunning if true.

For this family, mobile phones are like a "dummy", taken to bed, providing constant comfort, even to the extent of two sisters at the same local outdoor event constantly calling each other for reassurance. As Steve said, "they're a benefit that's become an addiction".

The night before their phones' removal, members of the family spent hours frantically writing out by hand all the names and numbers stored on their mobiles (haven't we got any further than that, technology-wise?).

"They're going to have to find a whole new way of communicating," murmured the voice-over. Well it didn't happen. Such was the dependency of the family of the mobile phone, that each member sweated blood waiting for the only fixed phone in the house to ring, unable to imagine a life without constant telephonic communication to provide a channel for their verbal meanderings; let their social life go to hell for the duration of the experiment; or worried themselves sick over the kitchen table as the usual expected mobile calls failed to materialise. Younger members of the family broke into the locked 'mobiel phone safe'. The rise in stress levels was palpable.

I'd love to see these people survive on the streets of anywhere outside the first world.