Comes: I can’t live without my phone. Or can I?

Shaye Comes, Content Editor

I dropped my phone while getting out of my car with my hands full of stuff sometime last year. The screen shattered, but I shrugged it off because it still worked and I could still see everything on my screen. 

I remember the anxiety I felt right before I had to tell my parents. To my surprise, they actually didn’t really care. 

Fast forward to this morning, I come out of my room, ready to conquer the day. I can’t wait to plug my still shattered phone into the aux cord of my car and jam out to start my day the right way. 

“Good morning, can you please leave your phone here today?” my dad says, cheerfully. 

My heart is pounding. My hands start sweating.

 “What? Why?” I reply, shakily. 

Turns out, he was taking it to get my shattered screen fixed so we could eventually trade all of our phones in. 

So I pretended I was fine and didn’t care, but on the inside, I still feel like I have a hole in my heart. 

A piece of me that I carry everywhere is gone. I am empty. But it’s not until I don’t have my phone that I realize how incredibly dependent I have become on it. 

Walking from class to class, my hands feel empty. I constantly feel that I’ve forgotten something. Having downtime in classes when I’ve finished all of my work means that I have no other choice but to read. Yes, I read a book. For pleasure. 

I almost feel like this short amount of time without my phone is making me want to just never have a phone again. I have become so observant of my surroundings. 

My classmates constantly have their heads in their phones. And I know I look just like them when I have my phone. I have been constantly reaching for my phone, just to check it. It brings me an odd sense of comfort, for some reason. 

The final conclusion that I’ve drawn is that though I’m incredibly dependent on my phone, I’m missing out on so much that goes on in real life. 

This school is full of a ton of crazy stuff, and if it takes me a day without my phone to realize that, maybe I have a problem.