Even in the third world, people own cellular phones. What was once a tool that was associated only with the rich and the extremely busy corporate crowd is now a basic communication device even for elementary school students and residents of rural areas.

A 12-year-old can simply call up her dad if she's ready to get picked up after school. Friends can easily send text messages to their other friends about where to meet up or simply to say 'hi'. Why, even strangers get to meet one another and make new friends by just using their cell phones.

With the many service providers available and the multitude of handset models around, owning a cell phone has elevated status from being a communication tool to a standard lifestyle and social device.

Nowadays, cell phones are not just cell phones. They can be video and sound recorders, Internet browsers, music composers, mp3 players, mini cameras, data storage devices and many others.

Users can even talk to each other via video phone and make their own movies using their phones. They can listen to hours' worth of music on cell phones with relatively greater memory storage capacities. Some can even be used as a portable unit to transfer data files from the computer to another terminal. And with manufacturers constantly coming up with new innovations, who knows what cell phones can do next?

In Japan, particularly, people are so obsessed with cell phones that majority of them change their units monthly or whenever a new model comes out. Some even own more than two.

In fact, because most cell phones are already equipped with mp3 players, video recorders and the like, other electronic devices like iPods and mini-recorders might become extinct over time. But that's just a prediction. Of course, there still are people who prefer that the different media functions remain separate.

Indeed, what began as a means of communication, where all you needed to do was punch in a few numbers to talk to somebody else, is currently an all-in-one media tool. And since manufacturers constantly develop and distribute upgraded versions, their price tags are bound to become lower, making them a lot more accessible even to people in the lower income bracket. Children may even be able to pay for their own phone bills through prepaid connections.

It ss a small world, yes. And it's getting smaller everytime a new communication device is introduced. Living in this day and age, we are already considered lucky.