The Universal Image of Our Age

This, I submit, is the singular, unifying image of our age.

At its core is a possession wanted by all; evidently affordable to most. It is ubiquity defined. Its promotion bankrolls shop signs, football team jerseys and the coliseums of the 21th century. From the Maluti mountains in Lesotho to the markets of Mysore, I have seen this image repeated thousands of times. I have borne its witness in the sacred mosques of Istanbul and on the lonely, rugged coast of Wales. There are few boundaries to its presence and, with each year, fewer barriers to its use. As a totem to today's younger generation, it is what wearing blue jeans was to mine - the defining symbol of a time. It is the ultimate global flattener - aspired to by all, a unifying icon that erases distance and the borders of nations. It flaunts the barricades of culture - a seemingly unstoppable force defying the constraints of religion and governments.

In some places, I have seen it used as an entertainment. Young couples on the lawns of the Taj Mahal and the majestic parks of Windsor - lying together on the grass, gazing into its all-consuming face. As it always present, its developers have extended its scope and shape well beyond original purpose. It is a personal servant that can buy Bollywood tickets in Delhi and play your current favourite tune over and over and over again on the dusty roads of Zanzibar. It can capture your image wherever and whenever, dispatching it for display in an instant. Its holding, coddling and protection has spawned whole new product lines for purse makers in Turkey and the craft weavers of Nepal. Beyond anything else, it is the the single thing that no respectable teenager can be without wherever they might live - a symbol of arrival chic and modern, the price of admission to a continually connected global tribe. As I travel the world, I see this image at every turn, in every place stationary or moving.

What I see is truly universal. What I see is young people in communion with their cellphones.