Is charging your phone all night safe?

The poor electricity situation in Nigeria has made
many of us to always look for any available space
to charge our phones even when our phone
battery is full.

This is because one can never tell when the Power
Holding Company of Nigeria will strike, as their
incompetence is as glaring as their counterparts in
the police force.

Read also: Samsung, set to buy blackberry.

Nigerians now charge their phones everywhere!
Churches, mosques, markets, restaurants, hotels,
schools, you name it. While most ladies have their
handsets in their bags, the men tuck inside their
pockets, laptop bags, handy bags e.t.c
In fact, a phone charger is an average Nigerian
man/woman/youth most needed device at any
point in time, especially for those who use
smartphones that the batteries are easily drained.
Many of us plug our phones at night before going
to bed, with the hope that we’ll wake up to a fully
charged device.
But is it really safe to leave our phones plugged
into the charger once they’re fully charged? Is it
damaging the battery — or shortening its lifespan?

From what is always said, too much of everything is bad, I'd say, too much of charging too is bad. Someone might say, The best option might be to get a low class mobile phone and convert the smart phones to home phones but is that convenient?