According to figures released last week by Cisco, the vast American networking hardware manufacturer, 2012 will see the number of mobile phones exceed the number of human beings worldwide. That is a pretty amazing statistic. Of course, in the UK mobiles already outnumber the population by some distance according to statistics disclosed at the end of last year.

The mobile phone revolution (and no other word more accurately describes the phenomenon) which began over twenty years ago shows no sign of abating and a brief look around any public place will show just how important mobile phones are to our every day lives. People are forever communicating with one another whether by phone or text, playing games and videos, listening to music and even watching television on the more sophisticated devices. It is quite incredible when you think back to the days when none of this was available to us. If you were to tell somebody under the age of twenty five that there was actually a time when we didn’t use mobile phones they will no doubt wonder how we managed to survive!

Mobile phones have many benefits, the ability to make contact in an emergency such as a car breakdown or a medical crisis immediately come to mind but there is always a downside if you don’t want to be contacted. Still, you can always ignore it or turn it off, can’t you? Maybe not.

There was an amusing tale in yesterday’s Sunday Times (taken from the Police Magazine) concerning a gentleman arrested for drink driving. Whilst being interviewed at the police station the sergeant asked him if he wanted to read the unread text message on his mobile phone before the phone was switched off and placed in the property bag. The man replied “No, I usually ignore the s**t the missus texts me”. The sergeant asked him if he was sure whereupon the man said “Oh go on then”. The message read “Don’t drive home, pigs w8ing 4 u round corner”!