What did I do to deserve this? I have had the misfortune to be seated within earshot of a wide-area mobile phone blabber.

When was the last time you were on a bus while someone was informing a surrounding contingent of innocent bystanders about the caller’s various weekend exploits?

It’s times like this I rue the day mobile phone technology came into being. But without getting too cliche, we must admit that cell phones are radically changing the way we communicate.

No, I am not talking about the fact that you can now describe your latest fiesta loca while leaving class. I am talking interactive walls, smart mobs, flash mobs and international development.

Times are changing. A recent survey by the Yankee Group found that U.S. cell phone usage surpassed landline usage this year.

Another study this year by research firm In-Stat/MDR, according to CNETNews.com, found that worldwide cell pone use will top 2 billion people by 2007 at a growth rate of 186 million people per year. In some western European countries, usage rates reach 70 percent of the population.

This phenomenal growth is beginning to affect communication in interesting ways. Flash mobs, or spontaneous meetings of people at a given location and time summoned by Web sites and facilitated by phone, have caused a recent media frenzy.

The mobs have taken place in Canada, Europe and the United States, and their activities have included showing up at a Toys “R” Us in New York and growling at the giant animatronic dinosaur (while freaked-out employees called the police).

In terms of social life, mobile phone text messaging, also known as Short Message Service (SMS), can be a blessing or a curse.

This week, a South African member of parliament ruined his marriage and made headlines with one slip of the thumb. Alie van Jaarsveld was caught in an extramarital affair when he intended to send the following text message his mistress, “I long for you. We can’t sleep apart. Renee, I am more in love with you than I was with anyone in my life. Come sleep with me please.”

The only problem is that the message went to his wife of 30 years — not his lover — and divorce papers have been filed, according to the BBC.

In the new Lisbon, Portugal office of the British communications company Vodaphone, an LCD wall offers those waiting in the offices news headlines and games in which they dial a number via cell phone to play against each other, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

For the developing world, the implications are equally interesting. In some parts of the world, for example, progress is skipping a few steps from no running water all the way to mobile phones in a heartbeat. People in numerous facets of society are often using the relatively inexpensive technology to improve their lives.

For example, via cell phones, farmers in rural areas of developing countries can get market prices via contacts in several locations and change their plans to respond on the fly.

Small-time businessmen now rely on their phones to network with clients dynamically. For example, in the Middle East this summer, taxi drivers were falling over themselves to give me their cards with the mobile number so I could call them whenever I needed a ride. This personal relationship is an advantage over a radio-dispatch system.

Taxi drivers were not the only ones in mobile heaven — SMS text messaging was the lifeblood of social life for young adults. In a social structure where men and women meeting socially in public is rare, the phone is with you every waking and sleeping moment.

An entire thumb language has developed for use in the messages where a combination of abbreviated Arab-ized English words and numbers to represent Arabic letters is used to deliver the joke or flirtatious remark.

New attention has also been drawn to SMS as a tool for activists to arrange events. These phenomena have been dubbed “smart mobs” by author Howard Rhiengold.

Mobile-armed activists used smart mobs to organize the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle and it’s argued that one million Filipinos helped to topple their president in mass demonstrations organized via text messaging. These are only a few of the examples.

Recent years show that the explosion of mobile communication technology holds the prospect to improve people’s lives in creative ways.

So the next time your fellow bus-riding pal broadcasts their latest party babble, just put your headphones on and think of the positive potential.