Why I Don't Have A Mobile
- Posted Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 09:40 UK time
A mobile phone may seem like an essential tool for modern life, but is it really?
A recent Magazine feature on sparked a flurry of comments from readers who don't own a mobile phone.
Whether it's health fears, the price of living in a remote area or simply a choice not to, there are plenty of reasons why an estimated 14% of the UK adult population goes without.
And as the Mobile World Congress goes on in Barcelona, it's a good time to hear the mobile refuseniks explain how life still goes on without one.
DAY THREE: After 15 years as a mobile phone owner, Gabrielle Collard (pictured below), a 37-year-old web producer from east London, gave up hers last year.
"The decision was made easier for me as I'd come back from travelling where I'd got used to not having one. Mobiles are like needy children, always wanting attention. I wanted to cut out the stress.
"Being self-employed without a mobile hasn't been a problem so far. My work isn't life-saving – email and a BT line is enough.
"At first I was anxious. Once, I was stuck in traffic and I needed to phone a client. But I just borrowed a phone from the guys in the van next to me. And it was free."
It's wrong to assume everyone is worried they can't contact you, she says, and mobiles have made people less likely to stick to social arrangements.
"There are more public phones than you think – lots of pubs still have them. And I still have a social life. It feels so liberating and somehow more grown-up without one.
"Sometimes when I'm out, I think to myself 'nobody knows I'm here... isn't it great!'"
DAY TWO: Kenneth Wilson (pictured right), 26, from Glasgow, says one of the key reasons why he chooses not own one is the association between mobiles and masts and bad health.
"Various forms of cancer, fertility problems, DNA damage and ear tumours are a few of the associated maladies.
"Although the nexus between these ailments and mobile phone use may be highly speculative, I find it entirely unacceptable that the mobile phone industry is permitted to peddle these devices to millions of people despite the possibility, unproven or not, of serious health risks."
He wants the risks to be properly investigated through a high-profile, transparent, government-funded study.
And he also has human rights concerns about the manufacture of handsets because the mineral coltan is frequently mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the miners, often children, are fiercely exploited, he says. And many mobiles are assembled in China.
Another reason is the level of "product worship", he says.
"This is how modern capitalism works, you have to convince the consumer that the product is meaningful and important, more than a phone, that it is about profound human communication or something just as ridiculous.
"I don’t believe for a second that people really want to communicate incessantly with each other, this idea has been sold to them on the premise that not to be immersed in the mobile phone world will result in cultural exclusion. Which, as a matter of fact, it actually does. Much to my displeasure."
DAY ONE: Clare Green (pictured below) is a 44-year-old housewife who recently moved back to the UK after spending eight years abroad.
She lives in Kinlochard, Stirlingshire, where the phone reception is very poor.
I don't have a mobile now and use skype to contact friends abroad or family. I am also a bit of a phonophobe, finding mobiles over-used. Why should everyone always feel they can contact me and interrupt my day?
"Why people feel the need to phone when driving or doing other activities escapes me. I'd rather talk in person or not at all. Most of what is said is drivel anyway.
"But I am not a technophobe and can use the internet and email/skype quite happily. The phonelines go down quite frequently here so it is better not to be too reliant on this mode of communication anyway."
After a couple of weeks in the house, her landline went down and she had to drive to Aberfoyle and use the call box.
"There is a really lovely community here and I'm sure any of my neighbours would have helped me out but we'd only been here a few weeks and I really need the landline to sort things out in our new house."
If you don't have a mobile phone and would like to tell us why, use the postform below.
The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
The 's recommended daily allowance of news, culture and your letters.
Monitor Archive
Read today's Magazine
Visit the Magazine index.
Visit .
- News Editors
- Sport Editors
- Journalism Labs
- ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Internet Blog
- Radio 4 Blog
- Peston's Picks
- Nick Robinson's Newslog
- Stephanomics
- Mark Easton's UK
- Mark Mardell's America
- Nick Bryant's Australia
- Andrew Harding on Africa
- Gavin Hewitt's Europe
- Soutik Biswas' India
- dot.Rory
- Science: Jonathan Amos
- Richard Black on environment
- Today: Tom Feilden
- Fergus Walsh's medical files
- Newsnight: Paul Mason
- Newsnight: Mark Urban
- Torin Douglas
- Will Gompertz's arts
- Phil Coomes on photojournalism
- Magazine Monitor
- Mark D'Arcy in Westminster
- NI: Mark Devenport
- Scotland: Brian Taylor
- Scotland: Douglas Fraser
- Wales: Betsan Powys
- Martin Rosenbaum on FOI
- 5 Live Breakfast
- Newsnight
- PM programme (iPM)
- World Tonight: Robin Lustig
°ä´Ç³¾³¾±ð²Ô³Ù²õÌýÌýPost your comment
There are multiple reasons why I don't use a mobile phone;
1) concerns over EMI emissions
2) poor reception
3) frequently dropped calls
4) a "fabricated" vs. real need
5) drivers using cell phones perform worse in tests than do drunk drivers
6) both caller and called must pay for the call versus a landline where only the caller pays
7) general poor quality of sound compared to a hardline phone
Hey,
Im 20 and i dont use a mobile, i dont see the need if people want to contact me they can contact me at home or over msn.
Im definitely not a technophone im more considered a computer geek i love gadgets i just cant be bothered to spend my day texting or carrying around a mobile!
I don't have a mobile phone becuase I don't want one and in my line of work I don't need one.
I find they are over used and for the best part people are not really communicating when they use them.
I feel that the development of mobiles is never ending and before you know it, it is time to change your phone. This makes me believe they are a fashion item as opposed to a tool for communicating.
I have also noticed that if I don't have a phone people are less demanding, less likely to be late when meeting to go somewhere, don't call me at the drop of a hat and are more understanding when they can't get in contact with me immediately.
I think not to have one makes life a lot easier. I understand that there are a lot of jobs that need them but I can not help feeling that most peoples use of a mobile is similar to playing with a toy.
I quite agree, mobiles to me are an interuption to my life. I do have one which is virtually never switched on, it is for emergencies like the car breaking down.
The younger generation will never know the freedom they have lost by allways being on the end of phone. And as for work mobiles, well the company now owns you 24/7.
I wonder what the next invention to intrude on our lives will be. Maybe mobile phones under the skin so you can be tracked every minute of the day.
Good luck with feeling so important that you have to be on the end of a phone 24/7, you're loss, not mine.
At home and at work I check e-mail regularly. If I am not there I am either driving or somewhere I don't want to be disturbed. You want to say something to me, e-mail. I'll pick it up quickly at my convenience... this has included a message about daughter being taken ill at school - picked up as soon as I had finished dealing with a student's serious personal problem, and even if I'd had a mobile I wouldn't have answered it while speaking with the student!
I'm writing this with a fountain pen stuck between my teeth. I doubt if Parker have proven that my pen won't cause ear cancer or infertility either. If every manufacturer had to PROVE that their product didn't cause every potential ailment under the sun then nothing would ever be made and we'd still be sitting in caves.
The reason I don't own a mobile phone is simple - I'm a radio astronomer. I work at a radio observatory where signals from mobile phones seriously interfere with our sensitive observations of the universe. Optical astronomy is already very difficult in this country because of the amount of artificial light, and radio astronomy is going the same way thanks to pressures on the use of the spectrum.
At work I have a phone on my desk, at home I have a landline. If someone wants to contact me urgently then there are plenty of ways to do it. Even when I'm away camping in the hills, I don't take a phone. I simply don't feel the need to be contactable 24 hours a day.
I got my first mobile in 2002. I put £20 on it, and nearly half of that still remains.
I have also got a work phone which I almost never use (mainly only when abroad with work, and then only to call my wife - don't tell the boss...). In fact it's really only in my car in case of emergencies. Email is much better, and it annoys me that people now never turn up on time or are quite happy to change plans at the last minute. Rudeness has increased, that is the main effect of mobiles it seems to me.
I think that anything that adds to noise pollution is an absolute menace. We have no cell phones in our house.
Interesting, the reasons why people don't have mobile phones. Most of it does not really add up. The health fears are completely unfounded - you get more radiation from other sources in your life that you are likely to get from a phone and how can not owning a phone yourself stop someone else from driving badly - unless you phone them up that is. I spend a lot of time out so I rarely use the land line in the house. Mobiles have saved me hours of time by people be able to call and say that I don't need to go somewhere or diverting me somewhere or that appointments have changed. I don't pay to receive calls and the call quality on my phone is better than my land line - mind you I did pour a glass of white wine into that so that may account for it.
In response to the majority of replies here it is entirely your decision not to own a mobile phone.
Yes, you are right it is nice to spend time alone without the interupption of a mobile phone ringing in your ears, but as easy it is to come to a decision not to own one, it is just as easy to switch one off.
As for emergencies, well, its ok and well saying your daughter is ill and you will pick up your emails at your convenience, well what if your daughter, son, had a life threatening emergency? Do you still think your email will pick up two plastic cups and and some string and inform you from the comfortable surrounding you sit in whilst you dont wish to be disturbed?
If you are concerned about emissions and health problems, well, dont forget that cows release harmful emissions, maybe we should all sign a petition asking for a transparent report into why we kill every cow in the country. In realistic terms, you are more likely to die in a plane crash than you are to receive health problems due to mobile phones.
To people who worry about being always contactable, or about a mobile phone affecting their work with sensitive instruments: all phones can be powered down, it doesn't have to be turned on just because you have it with you. The mobile pohone is just a tool to be used in a manner that suits you - you don't have to be a slave to it.
The amount of mis-information regarding mobile phones is stunning. Even on these comments we see that people think that all elements of the electromagnetic spectrum are as dangerous as nuclear radiation or that people on mobiles pay to recieve calls.
For those who look at their mobile and wish they could go back to when they didn't have them I say don't. It was rubbish turning up somewhere and wondering if someone who was 20 minutes late was going to show at all, only to find out that they missed their bus later but you'd already left.
Phones have an off button, if you feel they are taking control, use it.
In response to the majority of replies here it is entirely your decision not to own a mobile phone.
Yes, you are right it is nice to spend time alone without the interupption of a mobile phone ringing in your ears, but as easy it is to come to a decision not to own one, it is just as easy to switch one off.
As for emergencies, well, its ok and well saying your daughter is ill and you will pick up your emails at your convenience, well what if your daughter, son, had a life threatening emergency? Do you still think your email will pick up two plastic cups and and some string and inform you from the comfortable surrounding you sit in whilst you dont wish to be disturbed?
If you are concerned about emissions and health problems, well, don't forget that cows release harmful emissions, maybe we should all sign a petition asking for a transparent report into why we kill every cow in the country. In realistic terms, you are more likely to die in a plane crash than you are to receive health problems due to mobile phones.
Cut the smug nonsense people!
Are you really saying you don't want one of the biggest advances in human interaction since time began? Can you really not understand the huge convenience a mobile phone can be? If you don't want to be bothered, stick on silent or turn it off. If you cannot stop checking email and messages then I think you need to look at yourself, not the device. The mobile phone is a wonderful achievement and we should consider ourselves fortunate to live in a land and an age where almost anyone can own one.