It's been almost 20 years since the first big, clumsy and still fashionable mobile phones. You might agree with me some improvement was made on the line, from smaller telephone booths to smart phones which can connect to the Internet and make themselves even more addictive. Now that everyone owns one, some issues are starting to come up on the surface. Here's a short list:

Safety: recent studies seem to confirm what many people thought from the beginning. Radio wave overexposure is not exactly what you'd like to get, cases of leukemia or cancer have been reported. None of those studies has been 100% confirmed, as you can imagine a great debate is going on. If such hazards were true, almost everyone on the planet would be putting his health in danger. For the time being you might want to get precautions, mostly for long calls. Earplugs can be one.

Etiquette: as much as you wouldn't like someone to read the news during lunch or dozing off in the middle of a conversation, mobiles in restaurants soon became a no-no. Are they, still? The importance of ubiquity seems to have fringed such politeness barriers and augmented reality in this sense is stopping reality to mingle with the screen. Don't forget where you are and with who. Take some time off the grid at least once a month and enjoy being a caveman without hi-tech.

Necessity: is there any doubt about it? Whether it is just for emergencies or you're a compulsive texter, mobiles have become a real need. You can see students passing each other answers for tests or simply planning a party, to white collars on the train checking their emails on a Blackberry. An Italian philosopher, Maurizio Ferraris, even wrote a book about their "ontology," claiming that mobiles have become a hand prosthesis. Plan your days and actions, try to think about the most efficient way to do something without your smart phone.

Mobiles are now an indispensable item in every man's pocket, often substituting the need for a watch. Fancy or not, they represent a big step for humanity, where technology and flesh start to become one thing. Are you ready to consciously take this step? Can you realize how life was before?