Mobile phone madness! Are your colleagues, family and friends afflicted? What about you?

Editorial comment: There seem to be no limits to the madness that comes from our obsession with these gadgets. In the Independent (UK) on July 25th Jane Merrick wrote of seeing a toddler on a train platform drop his scooter onto the tracks while his mother was busy on her mobile. Another report in the same paper on the same day (by Tony Paterson) was about the presumed suicide of Carsten Schloter, chief executive of Swisscom.  He had admitted 'suffering from stress inflicted on him by the mobile device that helped catapult him to success: his smartphone.' 

A few months previously, Mr Schloter had told a newspaper reporter that, 

Modern communications devices have their downside. The most dangerous thing is to fall into a mode of permanent activity and continuously consult one's smartphone to see whether any new mails have come in. 

When asked if he could switch his phone off, he answered 'No...' 

My perception is that we have a new human condition – a 'smart autism'* – in which it is acceptable (even admirable) to be oblivious to our immediate environment and the fellow humans in it while focusing on a voice in our ear or an image on a small screen.  Of course, this condition is obsessive and driven rather than smart and is increasingly anti-human. 

Do you see this madness? In yourself? 

Comments welcome. 

* I am using the word autism here in its pre-ASD sense