As a priest my home phone can ring at any time, 24hrs a day, in the event that someone in my parish has need of my services. That degree of availability comes with the ‘job’. If I take a day off, the whole point is that I am not available otherwise it’s not a day off. I recently took two days off and went down to London to see a show and no one knew where I was and no one could call me. It’s not my preferred situation, but it is something of a luxury when it happens.

That said, I therefore struggle to understand the modern fixation of people not only to carry a mobile phone with them as if it’s an extension of their body, but they do it in order to ensure that they will be constantly available, constantly on-call, even in the bathroom for goodness’ sake.

Once upon a time, and in an age before ‘caller ID’, if you rang someone on their home phone and they were out, you waited until you thought they might be home and you rang them again. The world didn’t stop simply because someone wasn’t instantly available. Nowadays the presumption is that everyone is instantly available, aided by having a mobile phone with them wherever they are and whatever they are doing – a choice they make precisely because they want to be available.

And so you see a typical situation of two people walking along together, but each one is on their mobile phone to somebody else. Why would anyone make a call, or answer a call, when they are with someone else? It’s rude and bad-mannered but people do it all the time.

People need to get off their mobile phones.

It’s also why you see a family group in a restaurant and every kid will have a phone in front of them on the table so their friends can call them and talk to them. And their parents don’t do anything about it because they probably have their phones at the ready also. On that trip to London that I just mentioned, I was standing in Covent Garden overlooking a restaurant’s seating area where there were probably about twenty tables, and I counted seventeen mobile phones either on those tables or actually in use regardless of the fact that the users were supposed to be eating a meal with their family or friends.

I include a permanent reminder on my parish newsletter asking people to make sure their phones are switched off in church because otherwise, and sometimes even despite that request, the service will be interrupted by a ringing phone which it also takes the guilty party an age to switch off.

There was a news clip recently of Her Majesty the Queen being shown round a hospital and just as she was actually in the process of shaking hands with one of the hospital officials, his mobile rang and he turned away from the Queen to switch it off. What was he doing with a phone switched on in a situation like that – indeed why did he even need to have his phone with him in the first place when his priority was meeting the Queen?

None of us needs to be constantly in touch with the universe even though we might think we do or that the world might end if we don’t answer that ringing phone.

People could save themselves a lot of money by resisting the temptation to be instantly available and not carrying mobile phones with them everywhere they go, and they might also learn a lesson on the finer points of good manners and acceptable social behaviour.

Rev Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Yarm.

Why do we need to be glued to our mobile phones all the time? - Neil McNicholas