Take anything - but not my mobile phone!

Here's a typical conversation in many households:

TEEN DAUGHTER: Can I borrow $20? I need to top up.

FATHER: Hang on a moment - don't you have that monthly Text 2000 thing? You shouldn't need to top up.

TEEN DAUGHTER: Well, I've gone through 2000 texts.

FATHER (disbelieving): 2000? It's only been a week and a half!!

A report out of Australia today reveals some teens are so dependent on their mobile phones that they see them as an extension of themselves and experience a sense of dread when they are separated from them.

The syndrome's even been given a name: "NoMo phobia".

Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says he's observed the phobia in his clients over the last few years.

"It's a fear of not having with you a functioning mobile phone," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

The Sydney-based psychologist says many of the 12 to 24-year-olds he sees feel they can't cope without their phones, leaving them on during consultations.

"Mobile phones have really become almost a body part for young people," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

"(They're) absolutely indispensable, you could not go out without it, it's your lifeline, your major vehicle through which you arrange your social life."

For teens, a mobile phone is their primary social tool - they use it to make calls, text message, post updates on Twitter and check their Facebook.

"They've becoming increasingly important tools of socialisation, far more important than I think the vast majority of adults, certainly gen-Xers would ever realise," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

If their mobile goes awry "it's social death", he says.

"No other time in your life is the desire to socialise and be with your age mates strong as in adolescence.

"Adolescence is all about socialising.

"The reason why they have to socialise is they're trying to figure out who they are," a process which Dr Carr-Gregg says is vital to their development and self-definition.

"It's replaced the milkbar - the mobile phone is now a virtual milkbar."

To cope with their NoMo Phobia many teens sleep with their mobile buzzing beside their bed - resulting in a phenomenon Dr Carr-Gregg refers to as "zombie kids".

"Many kids stay up very, very late at night texting one another," Dr Carr-Gregg says, adding that mobile phones aren't necessary for kids until highschool.

"There is no question that the most sleep deprived segment of the population now is, in fact, young people.

"The reason why they're so sleep deprived is technology and one of the prime items of technology that's keeping them awake is having a mobile phone."

"Zombie kids" struggle to concentrate and focus at school, meaning they won't learn as well and they are grumpy.

He suggests parents enforce a charging table rule in a communal area of the home where all mobiles must go after a specified time and stay until the morning.

"I was told a very amusing story by a colleague of mine who has a teenage girl," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

"He was sick of the mobile phone going off so he took it off her and he put it by his own bedside but forgot to turn it off.

"The thing basically went off all night and the last text message was received about four am."

Dr Carr-Gregg likens this sort of behaviour to the "morning chorus" of birds - tweeting to one another when the sun rises.

"The reason why they tweet to one another is to find out who survived the night," he says.

"This, in my view, may be the equivalent of a sort of morning chorus ... the kids are reaching out to each other all night making sure that they're ok."

BRITISH TROOPS ARE DIRTY AND LAZY, SAYS US CHIEF

By John Ingham

BRITISH troops risking their lives in Afghanistan have been branded smelly and lazy in a bizarre attack by a US officer.

A US Marine commander claimed our forces in Helmand province were “cautious” about the Taliban and “overestimate their strength”.

He said British troops, who do six-month tours compared with US forces’ one year, spend too little time in Afghanistan.

They go out in too large formations, spend too long recovering from patrols, have inadequate intelligence gathering and too little cash to dole out, he said.

In a damning parting shot, the Marine added: “Your standards of personal hygiene and field discipline aren’t good enough and you have too many non-battle injuries.”

The comments were noted down by a British officer in the spring and are revealed in the latest New Statesman.

Britain has lost 196 troops in Afghanistan but its military standing has been weakened in America by errors in Iraq and its failure to defeat the Taliban.

This summer 8,000 American troops have poured into southern Helmand to cut off Taliban supply routes from Pakistan.

British commanders deny that the Americans are bailing them out and the criticism was dismissed as routine rivalry.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said: “Our forces in Afghanistan are second to none. I have huge respect for the US Marine Corps but our forces are just as good.

“They are very courageous and not, as implied, afraid of the Taliban.”

Col Kemp, whose book about the war, Attack State Red, comes out next month, said British forces had strict rules on personal hygiene.

But he added: “The environment in Afghanistan is one of the most demanding anywhere — incredibly hot and dusty.”

“But every army criticises every other army. I would put this down to fairly standard international rivalry.”

Major Charles Heyman, editor of the Armed Forces Of The UK book series, said some of the criticisms stemmed from the size of the British force.

He said: “British forces in Afghanistan do not have enough troops or the right equipment so they have to make do and mend.”

The Ministry of Defence cited senior American commanders and politicians, including President Barack Obama, who have praised British troops in Afghanistan and the close co-operation between British and American commanders.

An Army spokesman said: “We do not recognise this criticism of our highly professional troops. In the harsh battlefield conditions of Afghanistan every soldier knows that good field hygiene keeps them fighting fit. These are only the views of a single individual.”