Mobiles voted worst invention

[Malicious Intent]

Call me, or better still, don't. The backlash has begun against the mobile phone. Despite being so indispensable in the modern age that in Britain there are now more phones than people, the pocket friend has been dismissed as a foe in a BBC poll that rates the mobile among the "worst inventions" in history.

While the chirrup of novelty ring tones can be annoying, few would have guessed it was second only to biological weapons and atomic bombs as the public's least favourite appliance of science.

The mobile phone, to which an entire nation has become almost surgically attached, is clearly causing distress among users disturbed by their addiction to texting friends, informing family members that they are on the train and taking endless unnecessary photographs with attached cameras.

A survey of more than 4,000 people for the BBC Focus magazine revealed that mobile phones attracted almost twice as many votes as nuclear power and more than five times the number of votes as fast food. Also in the top ten are, in descending order, the Sinclair C5, television, the car, cigarettes, fast food, speed cameras and religion.

Last night Paul Parsons, editor of BBC Focus said: "When contemporary inventions such as the car and the mobile phone, which apparently enhance modern living, get voted as the worst inventions ever, it makes you realise that technologies and 'objects of desire' that seem to play an integral and important part in our lives may not in fact be pleasing the masses."

Mobile phones have clearly saturated the masses - however, the situation is worse in Luxembourg, which has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164 per cent.

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[Shawn]

I agree. The mobile that was above my crib freaked me out as a babe.