Ground Floor: Ten years ago, when owning a mobile phone was more of a status symbol than a normal part of life, I resisted the idea of having one. Eventually, like everyone, I succumbed but I did promise never to walk down the street talking into it. Another broken promise! Now, of course, it's hard to see people not connected to their mobile phones anywhere, writes Sheila O'Flanagan

I've often wondered, when looking at those perpetually ear-phoned people, if they are so afraid of their own company that they're unable to turn off the phone (or the MP3) even for the length of time it takes to walk down Grafton Street.

A psychologist at King's College in the UK has brought out a piece of research which says that our constant use of technological means of communication like mobiles and e-mails has made us more stupid. Hewlett-Packard, who commissioned the report, probably isn't exactly thrilled with that result, given its need to flog as many technological devices as possible, but the conclusion is that workers lose productivity by interrupting meetings to check for e-mails and muck up their social lives by constantly checking for text messages.

We are, apparently, obsessive about checking our messages. According to Glenn Wilson, who conducted the research, "workers cannot think as well when they are worrying about e-mail or voicemails. It effectively reduces their IQ." The research showed a drop of 10 points due to this information overload. The answer, according to Dr Wilson, is to switch off our phones and e-mail programs because constantly being in touch through them means that we are constantly breaking our concentration. Apparently, we feel the need to reply within half an hour of an e-mail message and so, if we're working on something important, we become distracted at the thought of having to deal with the message. How true this is! My e-mail notification is a gentle ping but it's like a dagger through my heart when I'm working.

As for the mobile - I love and loathe it in equal measure. I can see its absolute necessity in certain circumstances. At this point in my life, I would find it hard to throw away.

I can't hear an electronic bleep without wondering if it's my phone - even when it can't possibly be - which is incredibly distracting. Mobile phones weren't an integral part of the office environment when I had to work from one, but the idea of mobiles chirping and beeping during the working day is loathsome and must be a source of concern to employers who see productivity slump as text messages soar.

During the late 1990s, mobile phone companies were the gods of the stock market. Following the bursting of the technology bubble, they were like an unwelcome relative at the family home. Analysts are now wondering whether the tide is turning, since tech companies on both sides of the Atlantic are posting stronger results, with market-leader Nokia reporting that its profit and sales increases were higher than expected. Net income was up 18 per cent and revenue up 17 per cent in the first quarter, compared with an 11 per cent revenue increase in the same period last year. Motorola's sales were up nearly 10 per cent and earnings up 14 per cent.

This has cheered the tech community greatly, although they are reluctant to call a turnaround in the market just yet. New technologies will save the mobile phone operators. Camera phones led to a massive surge in sales - now everyone in the industry is busily eyeing up the digital music phenomenon with a view to muscling in on the MP3 market, which was blown open by the arrival of the iPod.

The phone companies have a strong hand to play - 1.4 billion people own mobile phones but only 10 million own iPods. The success of the iPod helped Apple's stock reach a 52-week high of $45.44 recently (the low was a mere $12.74). There's clearly a lot of money in portable music and Apple's success has made others want a slice. The company, learning from its 1970s mistakes, is now developing an iPod phone with Motorola.

Motorola is hopeful that the phone will be available this year and it would direct music buyers to Apple's iTunes site to download the music.

This may or may not work. Most people want to download the tune directly to the phone; sending the consumer to iTunes potentially means downloading to a computer and then synching with the phone. The main reason for the success of downloadable information to phones is ease of access. Initially it may be a question of price - Apple is suggesting that it can deliver the tunes far cheaper than the phone operators. This may be true right now. Current estimates are that (in the US) the operators are talking about $2 to download a tune whereas you pay 99c on iTunes. The company has already sold over 300 million songs so they have a market advantage. But the mobile phone operators have the even bigger advantage of billing people directly and therefore being able to collect for the downloads at the same time so people don't notice what they're paying. And they already pay those higher prices just to download ringtones.

We're paying over the odds for a few bars of a song already but we don't seem to care.

Are we stupid or something?