A boy ringing his parents on a mobile phone, a motorcycle roaring past, a lorry crawling up a steep hill. All of these examples contain traces of mobiles - not in the literal sense, but in an abstract yet observable meaning.

Every day around the world, billions of people are using a mobile. Whether they are driving vehicles, watching television or speaking on the phone, all these are classified under a single sub-heading: Mobile Mania. This is the term we give the itinerant frenzy in which we run our lives.

Television and computers allow us to witness events that are occurring thousands of kilometres away, even into the realm of science fiction. Take for example a researcher wishing to do scientific experiments on ice in Antarctica. Instead of conducting experiments on the ice floes of Antarctica, as would have been done a century ago, the researcher...