With internet-enabled handsets and full MP3 playback, mobile phones are poised to be get annoying than ever before. Below we list the five worst ringtones you can inflict on your fellow man, shortly before having a GSM-active miracle of modern technology jammed down your digestive tract.

1. The Top 40 Hit

How would you like to pay three dollars for a low quality track that can only be played on tiny speakers, and you'll only ever hear the first five seconds?

What you think it means: I am cool and hip and trendy!

What it actually means: I am a tiny cog in the corporate machine.

This is where other "Top X Worst Ringtones" features go wrong, pretending that modern pop songs are different (or even distinguishable). A Top 40 ringtone doesn't just let you know you have a call coming, it's a tiny beacon that tells everyone in earshot "I have no independent motivation of any kind". If you could see the computer code behind the "Most popular" tab on the download menu, it reads "Please just take my money and tell me what to like. Like you've been doing."

The one silver lining to this ear-polluting cloud is is the rap ringtone: because it's hilarious to hear G-Unit insisting he's still street from the speaker of a tweenagers pink phone in Hot Topic.

2. Your Favorite Theme

Ah, saturday mornings - where the only hassle was homework, any problem could be solved with teamwork and terrorists kindly agreed not to kill anyone without giving them a fair chance to escape.

What you think it means: I love this show!

What it actually means: I'm beginning to hate this show!

Unless you work for the Playboy Cheerleading Squad shower maintenance callout service, not every call is a welcome one. What starts out as a fun nostalgic gesture will rapidly devolve into horrific Pavlovian training, Clockwork Orangey psychological programming where you associate the sound of your beloved childhood memories with interruption, annoyance and embarrassment in the cinema.

Because it's not the A-Team calling to invite you on a mission, is it? It's your boss wondering why you left work early, or your boyfriend wondering why you're not home yet, or anybody at all the morning after wondeing why you just want to die in peace.

3. A "hilarious" voice of any kind

If there are voices coming out of your phone not sent by other people on other phones, you are an idiot.

What you think it means: I'm so hilarious!

What it actually means: You really, really aren't

There are too many "comedy" voice ring tones even to list here, a fact which by itself justifies the existence of the Amish and their mistrust of modern technology. It's a little known fact that these ring tones are part of a secret government "Tax the retarded" program, along with NASCAR merchandising and any profits generated in any way by Tila Tequila.

The only thing worse than a fake voice is a fake swearing voice: an announcement to the world in general that "I am never even in the same room as somebody I respect, somebody I care about or even the remotest prospect of personal advancement."

4. Ultrasonics

Along with your gut and and your pectorals/breasts, the upper frequency limit of your hearing sags lower as you age. A ringtone that only young people can hear harnesses this fact.

What you think it means: I'll show those grownups, I'm such a rebel!

What it actually means: I will voluntarily subject myself to an anti-personnel weapon. Developed by grownups.

Government-funded defense contractors have been building ultrasonic weapons designed to subdue large groups of civilians, many of whom are only protesting in the first place because governments are building things like this. If they attempted to fire low power versions at annoying teenagers they'd get in trouble - but selling them and letting the idiots slowly vibrate themselves to pieces? Genius!

It's also a form of self-torture, because unless you've got a Star Trek communicator complete with cloaking device accessories, other people will still see you if you respond to your secret signal. Subjecting yourself to a constantly ringing phone that only you can hear? That isn't cool, in fact we're fairly sure that's one of the modern levels of Hell. All you're achieving is the fact your parents don't know why your ADD-addled frame is suddenly even twitchier than normal.

5. Christmas Music

There was a time when Christmas music was not sonic torture. This time was before the invention of shopping center PA systems.

What you think it means: I am so jolly and celebrating the season!

What it actually means: I am driving everyone within earshot ever-closer to murder/suicide.

Either you're playing the song outside of the relevant season, in which case you're just failing in all kinds of ways, or you're playing it during the season, in which case you're adding to the two month long Geneva-convention defying sonic brainmelting that capitalism has decided is "festive". But the unexpected nature of the the four-millionth tinny rendition of "jingle bells" coming from your pants pocket may just be the final straw that causes them to snap. Full "Falling Dawn" baseball-bat-and-rocket-launcher snap. You may need to buy a new phone/face by the time they're finished.