In yesterday's Loose Wire column in The Wall Street Journal, Jeremy Wagstaff reported some really interesting statistics about mobile phone usage patterns that he got from researchers at Nokia. According to the article, which is unfortunately only available to subscribers:

• 30% of people who carry their mobile phones in a pants pocket fail to answer some or all of their incoming calls
• 61% of women carry their mobile phones in a handbag or some other bag that they carry
• about half of women who carry their phones in a bag "regularly miss incoming calls" because the call isn't noticed or the phone can't be found before the call goes to voicemail
• belt pouches and phone straps are options used by a minority of men and women to avoid missing calls

I don't think I call any women who regularly miss incoming calls because their phone is burined in the main pocket of a handbag. If I had run into that problem in the past, I probably would have stopped calling the people involved. I'd rather send an email or a text message if I know I'm going to have to leave a message anyway.

My wife Kathleen has a good way of handling the phone in the bag issue when she is out with our son Jimmy: she always puts her Treo 650 in the same outside pocket of the baby bag. I've had to grab her phone a few times when she is on-call, and I've been able to answer before the call goes to voicemail.