The environment is an important issue to a great many people, and any time that someone makes a political or lifestyle decision in the modern day, there is always an environmental question to answer. Certainly it comes into play with mobile phones, as when thrown away they can be a major environmental hazard, with many of their components taking more than a century to degrade.

One major response to this has been the development of organizations who pay for old mobile phones so as to recycle the phone or its components. Even if your phone is very old and no longer really any use as a phone, it will have components which are usable, and even if the amount that you get for it is not much, it is better than nothing.

Of course, many mobile phone companies and stores have a similar policy of paying for old mobile phones or using them as a part-exchange component allowing the customer to make a saving on the new cell phone they wish to buy. In doing this, they prevent people from simply throwing away an old phone when they cease to have a use for it.

If the environment is a source of concern to you, then the options available for disposal of your old mobile phone have never been greater. There is of course always a push on to find more environmentally friendly ways of manufacturing, and it is to be hoped that these methods will develop quickly.

In many ways, it is stunning just how maligned the cell phone has become in our society. Although most of us have them, most of us also have things we complain about with regard to our phone. Maybe it gets poor coverage, maybe it has short battery life. It could be that we don’t like the way our phone sometimes seems to give us our text messages when it feels the need.

However, on balance it would seem that most of us have more to be happy with than unhappy when it comes to our mobile phone. They have certainly increased the level of convenience in everyday life. There was a time, not so long ago, when an answerphone was something attached only to the home phones of people who could afford one. Now, it’s a standard feature of every cell phone.

This means that if we aren’t there to answer a call, at least a message can be left and, in most cases, listened to at no charge when the phone user is next able to take a few moments. Along with the convenience of text messages – they wait in your inbox until you have a chance to read them – this has made it easier to keep up to date while still going about your business.

In addition to that, remembering numbers always used to be something of a pain, and even writing them down in a personal phone book meant that you needed to stop and sit down to make a call. With a cell phone, you store the number and then find the name when you need it – and hey presto, you make the call.

An unforeseen development in the world of mobile phone technology, ring tones were not initially considered to be anything worth talking about even during the early years of mobile phone proliferation. Sure, you could change the sound your phone would make when it rang – it could sound like your home phone, play a slow three-bar musical excerpt, or make a sharper sound – but few of us gave much thought to that.

It was at the start of this century that people really started to think about the ring tone as something more than just an alert that someone was trying to contact you. Suddenly, monophonic interpretations of well-known songs started appearing, and people were impressed. To hear them now would be faintly comical, but at the time it was seen as pretty cool by a lot of people.

The development of polyphonic ring tones then took it up a level. While early efforts at replicating a chart single basically sounded like a series of bleeps with little resemblance to the original, polyphonic technology allowed the replication of guitar, bass and drums among other sounds, to sound more like “the real thing”.

As time has gone on, it has become possible to have an actual recording of the song of your choice as your ring tone, and this is all well and good. But it does beg the question – if you like music and want to listen to it, surely it is better to just play the song? If someone rings you, isn’t the idea to answer the call as quickly as you can, rather than sit singing along?

In this day and age, just about everyone has a cell phone and there are so many models on the market that “brand loyalty” has become an issue. Some people change their mobile phone every few months, slavishly taking up every new development – phones get thinner, smaller, more colorful, more powerful and more desirable in a certain way – while others stick with their current phone until it no longer works.

Your own approach can be informative. Many people have the same mobile phone now that they did in 2005. When offered an upgrade, their answer is “Why? This one does everything I need – I just want to make calls and receive them, and send the occasional text?”. The offer of web-enabled phones or other features does little to persuade them.

Other people, as mentioned, will buy the newest phone the second it hits the market, often trading in their existing model to get the newer phone for a reduced price. Some do this because the new features are genuinely beneficial to them – for some people, increased internet capability is something that will help them in their job – while others just want to have the best phone in their circle of friends.

As long as you have the ability to fund every new phone you buy, there is nothing wrong with keeping your model up to date. However, there is certainly something to be said for keeping the old model until it can no longer be used – if you’ve got to this point without being able to make and upload YouTube videos, then you can probably go a little longer without it.

As technology develops to service a market hungry for the next innovation, there are always going to be people who are so struck by the brilliance of the new technology that they come to see it as a human need as important as oxygen, food or water. People develop addictions to technology which may not be seen as serious by everyone, but to some can be extremely debilitating.

As a caveat, it is important to state that a cell phone addiction is not, in terms of physiological impact, as serious as addiction to heroin or nicotine or any other “controlled” substance. The effects of those on the body of the user have been proven over time. While some people will get irritable and panicky if separated from their cell phone, it is not the same thing at all.

However, this notwithstanding, obsessive mobile phone use does happen and it does cause problems. There are endless stories of people who run up huge cell phone bills because they are compulsively sending text messages, making calls and paying for ringtones for their phone. Others cannot bear to be without the latest model and will spend every spare penny they have on upgrades.

While it may not be as serious as an addiction to hard drugs, cell phone dependence is not something that should be allowed to go unchecked. There are some situations where it is downright inappropriate to be on a cell phone, and when someone is stealing to fund their dependence it is as close to drug addiction as to make little difference. It is wise to limit cell phone use by whatever means are required.