A new survey, commissioned by the BBC’s Focus magazine and carried out on the Radio Times website, has named the mobile phone as the second worst invention ever. The “winner” of this dubious honour was the weapon, which was voted by 35% of respondents.
The top 10 worst inventions ever:
- Weapons (35%)
- Mobile phones (17%)
- Nuclear power (9%)
- Sinclair C5 (9%)
- Television (9%)
- The car (6%)
- Cigarettes (6%)
- Fast food (3%)
- Speed cameras (3%)
- Religion (2%)
The strange thing about this survey is that the top results consist almost entirely of things people will pay a lot of money for. If the mobile phone is so bad why does everybody use them?
BBC Focus editor Paul Parsons commented:
When contemporary inventions such as the car and the mobile phone, which apparently enhance modern living, get voted as the worst inventions ever, it makes you realise that technologies and ‘objects of desire’ that seem to play an integral and important part in our lives may not in fact be pleasing the masses,
