Elen Newcombe writes for Imperial College London’s Felix on the rise of nomophobia – the fear of being apart from your phone:

Has it ever occurred to you just how much of our modern lives are lived via screens? I am sitting here writing this on my laptop, which has been switched on ever since I decided to watch a cheeky episode of Green Wing over breakfast. My mobile phone has been within a two metre radius of my person all day. My housemates and I are considering popping to the cinema later. No doubt the lectures I will attend this week will be conducted via a projector screen. Even if I wanted to escape, I would no doubt be bombarded with screens and monitors in supermarkets, tube stations, and even just walking innocently down the street.

My question is whether this is a bad thing? Should we be worried about our ever-increasing reliance on this virtual world? When a seven-year old has a tantrum on the tube because she has been forced to wait three seconds too long for her top-of-the-range mp3 player, I think there may be something wrong…

Full article here.