Four Stocks for Cell-Phone Mania

In Spain, where a population of 41 million people has more than 35 million cell phones, authorities complain that obsessive-compulsive behavior has afflicted teenagers disproportionately. Newspapers are filled with stories of young users spending so much class time making calls, receiving text messages and surfing the Web that they flunk out. A Spanish wire service reports that up to 15% of Spanish teens sleep with their mobile phones to make sure they can answer messages overnight. And to pay bills approaching $1,000 a month, some have turned to crime.

Over in Australia, a researcher at Queensland University concluded that cellular addiction stems from the fact that many users consider it to be a "security blanket" that improved their sense of self-worth and thus become obsessive in their perceived need to be near one. Maybe that's why 300 million phones were sold last year with digital cameras fitted inside -- way more than the number of stand-alone digital cameras sold.

If you think an uptake this rapid and extensive has something more going for it than mere usefulness and security, you're right. A sales job of historic proportions has helped, as cellular companies have invested vast sums of money in Madison Avenue techniques to persuade us to hook up. More money is spent marketing cell phones, in fact, than any other object in the U.S., including cars, tobacco and laundry detergent.