In search of sangat

I've decided not to renew my current mobile phone contract which is about to end. There's a whole load of offers and deals out there, so if you shop around you can definitely pick up a good deal.

Instead, I've signed up for a new 12 month contract which upgrades me from my old Nokia 3510i to the Sony Erricson K300i (I know many of you might be thinking this guy's still living in the stone age). One of the first thing I did was to ring the network and ask for internet connection, premium rate numbers, international calls, multimedia messages, and wap to be disabled. I probably won't use all the free 300 minutes the contract gives me either.

I think one of the challenges we all face is that of avoiding bad sangat and keeping good sangat, and sangat does not just refer to the company of people - it's any source that can have an effect on your emotions and thinking. The internet, satellite tv, phone chat services, etc, are all forms of sangat.

The bigger challenge is how do we ensure children do not fall prey to bad sangat, this is a very important question we all cannot afford to ignore.

This article from yesterday's Metro newspaper is an interesting read:

We are blowing £750million a year downloading pictures, games and songs to mobile phones, research shows - 18 times more than three years ago.

The money spent on mobile downloads, including irritating songs such as Crazy Frog's Axel F, could feed 9.3million African children for a year. And demand for all downloads, apart from wallpapers or screensavers that make up a tenth of sales, will double by January, the survey suggests. Gambling, which represents nine per cent of sales, is set to grow by a staggering 367 per cent.

Ringtones, which sell for about £3 a time, make up a third of sales, while games, which cost about £5, represent a quarter.

A spokesman for market analyst Mintel said: 'This sector has mushroomed, probably because new technology is an integral part of modern life.'

Download company Jamster spent more than £10million running its incessant Crazy Frog TV adverts during the summer - and advertising watchdogs received a sackload of complaints.

But Jamster's spending seems to have paid off, with more than 11million people downloading the Crazy Frog song, which spent three weeks at No.1.

Leicester-based download firm Monstermob is also enjoying huge success. It raked in £21.7million in the six months to June - £4.1million of which was pure profit.

However, it is not all roses for the companies. Jamster and a rival are being investigated and face huge fines if found guilty of fooling children into signing up to expensive services.

With increasingly sophisticated mobile phones, children can now have access to the Internet and pornography via their phones.

Mobile network Orange has released guidelines to help parents, in association with charity Parentline Plus.