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The real problem with mobile phones (or cell phones) is not the phones themselves nor what they have done, or might do to our environment.

Of course both ecologically and in other ways, perhaps socially for instance, phones create both solutions to age old problems and new conundrums in their own right. But the issue here is not simply whether or not phones should be given up, but whether we, the human race, are capable of taking a step backwards.

Progress has become a buzz word of our times. Now, more than ever the emphasis is on new and faster development. Everything must become faster, bigger and better, or else smaller and micro-powerful, and therefore in some way, still bigger. We've brought every facet of our lives screaming into the age of technology to an extent that the average joe in the street couldn't survive without it. We've done it with our transport, our homes, our places of work, our social networks. We have online communities, in a global society, where the very idea of giving up our ability to contact Geneva, Bejing and Montreal at the touch of a button is laughable.

Life doesn't work that way anymore, and now that people have jumped onto the information super-highway they are not going to warm quickly to the idea of returning to the metaphorical donkey train of land lines, or, God forbid, actually waiting until we next see somebody. Besides, when you friends live on the other side of the world, that's unlikely to happen.

We live in an age of convenience too, and giving up our mobiles, however necessary, is not convenient. despite the prospects of eco collapse, for the average complacent Brit at least, it will take some considerable leverage to compel us to give up our mobiles.

Unless of course, we can be saved from ourselves by the 'next big thing.' A communication device that exceeds the expectations of a mere mobile phone (or at least equals it plus some higher moral ground into the bargain). To expect the world to relinquish the mobile phone is rather naive, unless they can be persuaded to give it up in exchange for something bigger, better and brighter. As the car industry toys with hybrids, and electric powered vehicles and all manner of green devices to lure the public from their petrol driven craze (and essential lifestyle for todays society - we built it, now we have to live in it) so the phone industry's best hope to save the world from all colours not green is to offer the next step forward - the latest stage in phone evolution.

Then we just have to wait for some bright spark to figure out how this new improved model will in its own unique way destroy everything we know and love. We're destructive beings really, and the more we try to fix it, the more we fuel the fires.

Learn more about this author, Michael Swain.
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