I SURELY cannot be the only person holding the belief that our obsessive need for mobile phones of every description to be within sight and hearing distance every second of the day and night is unhealthy.

They have their place but they can more often make for a very anti-social society in the real, if not virtual, world.

If 2013 is to stand for anything, it should be the year of courtesy, and respect from mobile phone users, whereby mobiles are switched off on public transport, in cafes, restaurants and bars, and surgeries.

Partners, friends, colleagues and relations should actually communicate face to face, not with a device being obsessively scrolled, typed or played on throughout their company.

Just as with the unwritten codes of common sense, decency, etiquette, and manners, the code for mobile phone useage must be laid down.

As a civilised society our addictive and insecurity complexes without the aid of our mobile phones to guide us is becoming ridiculous.

If we are to be better oral communicators through speech to one another, face to face, not through social media sites, our first course of action when we meet up must be to switch our mobile phones off, and our listening skills on.

Jill Ferguson,

1/1, 6 Crow Road,

Partick, Glasgow.