Can you live without your mobile phone?

We have arachnophobia - fear of spiders, agoraphobia - fear of open spaces, claustrophobia - fear of confined spaces and aviophobia -  a fear of flying.

But the advent of the mobile phone has added another morbid fear to the list - nomophobia.

This is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, and it is on the rise in the UK.

A survey of 1,000 employed adults revealed two thirds suffer from this affliction.

Almost half of those questioned had two or more mobile phones to make sure they are always in contact.

And it seems women are more worried about losing their phone than men.

Around 70 per cent of those quizzed suffer from nomophobia compared to 61 per cent of men.

This probably explains why blokes are more likely to have two phones.

It will come as no surprise that it’s the younger generation of 18 to 24 year olds who are the most paranoid at not having their mobiles to hand.

Whenever you see teenagers these days they are permanently glued to their mobile either talking or twittering or Facebooking.

I remember the days when I would rush home from work to be by the phone to wait for that important call - how did we manage?

Another no no is looking at a partner’s messages, that I would have thought goes without saying.

Almost half of those questioned would lose their rag if their other half looked at their messages.

There is something deeply private about the information on your mobile phone, especially messages, which in long strings serve as a record of sometimes the most personal conversations.

It would almost be like breaking the lock on a diary to go rifling through someone’s texts.

The survey revealed how dependent we have become on mobile phones, and how much of a part they play in virtually every minute of our lives.

I comfortably fit into the category of nomophobic as I rely on my trusty iPhone for just about everything.

Making calls is probably the thing I use it for least, especially when I can organise my bank accounts, write spreadsheets, plan my diary, read, book tickets, play games and shop on it.

They are a great invention, but thinking back to when I would meet people rather than Facebook them, or call rather than text, I wonder if having a mobile phone comes at the cost of true human interaction.