Well, in 2001, the total number of mobile phones worldwide surpassed the number of television sets, and currently over 4 billion people, roughly two-thirds of the world's population owns a mobile phone, and many people have more than one. Considering that of the one-third of the worl'd's people that are left over, many are probably babies or people unable to own or use a mobile phone, you would be forgiven for thinking that there are not too many people without one. Far from it!
In India, the mobile phone market has a national saturation rate of less than 30%, indicating that there's plenty of room for more, whereas in the US about 80% of people have a mobile phone. Farmers and other residents in rural areas of countries such as India and Africa use cheap or shared mobile phones to access relevant market and other information that help them in their agricultural and livestock businesses. They would otherwise not be able to do this otherwise due to lack of landline infrastructure in rural and remote regions. A report by the United Nations has found that there are actually more mobile phones in India than there are toilets... In Dhakar there is an sms based version of something like ebay called Cellbazaar, where people can list, sell and buy goods by text messaging. 
In more developed countries, mobile phones are probably used more for social and leisure purposes rather than anything else. Wireless technology and 3G phones, smartphones, android phones and iphones provide a smorgasboard of choices to select from, including: taking photos, playing games, listening to music, moblogging, watching tv shows & movies, or make your own and upload it to YouTube. A mind-boggling array of over 250,000 iphone applications presents no limits to what you can do with your iphone. But what are the ramifications of all this mobile-mania? 
According to Hans Geser, there are four main areas to be concerned about in social overuse of the mobile phone: 1) mob phone users tend to be in constant contact with family and close friends at the expense of widening their social networks, using the phone as a safety blanket and becoming reluctant to deal with the unfamiliar, such as not answering calls from unfamiliar numbers;
2) mob phone users forgetting, or not learning proper planning and organising skills, due to the immediacy of mobile technology enabling decisions to me made, and cancelled spontaneously, rather than having to schedule things in advance, make firm commitments and be punctual;
3) a change in the communication dynamics between work and home, with family members able to access employees on their personal mobile phones at work, rather than on the employer's phone, leading to constant interruptions and a change in employees' attention and productivity, and work-life balance;
There are many other anti-social aspects of mobile phone usage, such as the too-loud commuter, the distracted texting driver, the popular person who's always on the phone while in company of friends, and the tradie working on your tiling/painting/floors/roofing/etc who is happy to answer calls and chat on his phone while charging you an arm and a leg for the privilege of listening to him book more jobs.... Some interesting research is being conducted on how people use their phones, and one recent report indicates that one in three teens in the US sends around 3000 text messages a month! Poor phone habits have led to bans and policies being developed, and rules of mobile phone etiquette have been formulated. But can we do without our mobile phones? Considering that many people use their mobile phones for just about everything - alarm, camera & photo storage, calculator, address book as well as all the uses mentioned earlier, it would be difficult to find a small, handy appliance that would replace it. Most mobile phone users keep their phones close to their body, almost like another appendage. It looks as though Donna Haraway was right - we have become cyborgs - a blend of machine and human, so entwined that they cannot be split...
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