Mobile phone evolution

Scientists announce that we have now evolved through mobile phone usage to the point where our thumbs are as flexible as our index fingers, and Magda Knight has a bubble bath.

The bath is getting colder, but I forget to add more hot water or bubbles because I’m too busy being excited by my amazing little thumbs. It’s not their sultry nail polish that thrills me (Baked by Urban Decay), but actually the joy of discovering that my waggly thumbs are proof that we have officially taken the next step in the evolution of the species!

Apparently, scientists say (and they like to gossip, they’re a regular sewing-circle) that because of years of using mobile phones our thumbs have now evolved to be as dextrous as our index fingers!

I give my fingers an experimental shake. Okay, that’s a lie. What I actually do is a full-on jazz hands rendition in the bath. But the point is… can we really have evolved to a new level purely through the advent of the humble mobile phone? Can our phones really be the saviour of humankind?

I top up the hot water, finally, and my hands get all wrinkly and start looking like monkey paws. Blimey, I think, we used to be monkeys! We did! And though some disagree with Darwin, I bloody don’t, and only partly because my wrinkly bath hands prove it! We were monkeys… Science fact!

With evoloution we’ve lost as well as gained. To be specific, we’ve lost a prehensile tail, and that’s always been a source of disappointment to me. In my low moments, I’m not convinced that we are getting more civilised as we ‘evolve’. If digital dexterity is being taken by scientists as a measure of evolution, then what are we evolving into? People who search for Britney and rub their trousers? Folks who txt-speak not because it’s quicker, cheaper and fun but because they’ve forgotten how to spell the long way?

Goodbye, home sapiens. Hello, homo textus.

Happily wiggling my sexy-texty thumbs in the bath I ignore a squeaky little voice in the back of my brain that says “Well, yes. We are homo textus now – homo textus, uber alles… will we ever stop having wars? Will we ever stop texting the wrong person by mistake? As we evolve faster and faster are we actually just a bullet train hurling itself into a brick wall?

I climb out of the bath.