If you’re reading this, you might be an addict!

Ever forget your cell phone or smartphone at home? How does that feel? For me, I feel cut off. I can’t call my sister, my friends, my fiancée, my parents. I can’t text someone. I can’t keep in touch.

As a young twenty-something I’ve had a cell phone since middle school. Back then I didn’t really need it all that much because, let’s face it, how often was I not with my parents? I’ve never experienced issues arising from not having a cell phone, except once. And I just borrowed someone else’s.

Often I wonder how things were for my parents growing up. People used to meet up by just … meeting up. No calls while you were on the way. No texts to meet me at the diner or whatever. And what if something came up? What if you were running late, or you had to cancel? What happened to the friend waiting there who got there first?

Cell phones make life so much easier and as a result we’ve become so attached to them. So attached, that in a study, students who were asked not to use their cell phones or other social media experienced symptoms of withdrawal. Like an addict trying to quit a drug.

The one thing the 200 students who participated for 24 hours were allowed to do was write a private blog post about their experiences. They felt like they were cut off and were “‘losing their personal connections.’” They admitted they might be addicted.

Of course, psychologically, they aren’t addicted. There’s no official addiction to media. But it does make you wonder. Are we creating a new psychological disorder where people become addicted to connections and media? Or is this the new normal? And if it is normal, should we really be so reliant upon it?

I guess that’s just the way technology goes. We become reliant upon it. I don’t consider myself addicted to my car, but I drive everywhere, even to the 7-11 just down the block (as if I shouldn’t walk to get my pint of Ben & Jerry’s). Maybe this is just part of the natural cycle and a few years down the line we’ll laugh about the fact that we once thought you could become addicted to social media and social networking.