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It’s day two of our series within a series and if, like me, you’re an early bird you may have just caught British Museum curator Ben Roberts talking to Evan Davis on Radio 4 about the second on our list of contenders for the 100th object spot.

It’s something that will perhaps not surprise many. Some of you may even be using one to read this post. In fact a lot of you have already told us that it would be your 100th object.

It’s a mobile phone.

There are around five billion (yes, five billion) mobile phones in use in the world today. That’s astonishing. At age 31 I don’t consider myself all that old, but I remember a time before we had them. We’ve effectively gone from 0 to 5 billion in one generation.

And in so many ways these little devices have changed our lives as they have become – more and more – vital pieces of our everyday puzzle. So far has this process gone that mobiles are now intrinsic elements of global culture, almost dictating our lives from how we communicate and organise ourselves, to the language we use (text-ing anyone?).

But from the image you see here you’ll be able to spot that the phone we’ve chosen is not exactly the latest model. There’s no camera, and not an app in sight.

This phone is at least second-hand and was bought for the British Museum in a market in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. It's perhaps not a surprise it's a Nokia, as they are the largest single manufacturer of mobile phones in the world and this is one of the first models to be sold widely in Africa. The story it tells – and the principle reason why it’s on our list – is how mobiles are transforming the developing world.

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In many parts of the world access to telephones was until recently restricted by the availability of fixed telephone lines. In the developing world, a lack of infrastructure has meant no access to the ease of communication afforded by phones. Mobiles have meant people can have that without the need for land lines (as our evolving language would put it).

So now fishermen in Kerala, India, can use mobiles to check out where the best prices might be paid for their catch; farmers in Tanzania can sign-up to a text-messaging service that’ll keep them updated on the weather forecast, and small businesses across Africa can transfer their money through the air.

In the developing world mobile phones mean connectivity, communication and economic development on an unprecedented scale.ÌýÌý

Like yesterday’s football shirt this is not an object of beauty. It’s not a special object and no-one will be filled with awe at the sight of it in a museum display case. But it’s very ubiquity is part of what makes it so important and so relevant.

Just as the stone tools featured in the first week of this series were among the objects that defined early humans, this is one of the objects that defines and expresses who we are and how we live today.

• Listen to Evan Davis discussing the mobile phone with curator Ben Roberts

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• Find out about the other contenders: a football shirt, a Antarctic clothing, a solar-powered lamp and a pestle and mortar.

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