Cell phone overuse has been an issue for a long time now. Stepping away from the digital world to enjoy the now.

As I walk down the South Oval to my classes, I realize that I haven’t made eye contact with anyone between Dale and Gittinger. I sit in a waiting room to talk to an advisor, and the person next me doesn’t even look up. My roommates and I go dinner, but we barely even talk to each other, unless it’s the recent gossip about someone from our hometown. The cause of all this: cell phones.

Cell phones are taking over our world, and while I appreciate having the ability to talk to my friend in Italy at the click of a few buttons, I also dread the constant vibrations, lighting up, and ringing. I also hate when I drop my phone on my face while I lay in bed because I must check to see if anything interesting has happened on Facebook since I last checked it on my computer ten minutes before. 

I had quite a few challenges this last year to take a break from social media and my cell phone, from giving up social media for forty days during to Spring semester to putting my phone in my cubby all day as I ran around with kids at the summer camp I work at, and because of that I’ve missed out on some hashtags, selfies, instacollages, and most of all t-shirt links. But I gained a lot from putting down my cell phone, even if it was just for an hour. So here are three reasons for you to do the same (although I could probably come up with a thousand), and just leave your phone at home. 

 1.    You miss out on less. While you’ll definitely miss out on the ice bucket challenges all your friends are doing, you’ll observe a lot more of your surroundings. You won’t almost get hit by a bike on the South Oval because you aren’t diagonally walking into the bike lane with your eyes glued to your screen. You won’t miss out on a chance to say “Hey” to the boy who lived on the opposite side of your floor freshman year that you always had a crush on. Also, you’ll get to see the nature around you, like the green grass and the flowers that our university spends so much money and time on. 

2.    You have more time to do other things. There used to be a website where you could calculate the amount of time you’ve wasted on Facebook (just Facebook, not all social media like Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest), and I had wasted like twenty days of my life according to their algorithm. Imagine how much I could do with those twenty days? Well if I put down my phone, I could find out. I always say that I never have time to read a book or see a movie or sleep, but I somehow always find the time to check my newsfeed for whatever the random people are doing next. So find the time to do those things you’ve been procrastinating and by putting down your phone. 

3.    You have better relationships with the people around you. How many times do you go to dinner with friends and spend a majority of the time on your phone looking at things that don’t pertain to the people you’re with? When you leave your phone in your purse or pocket, you’re able to communicate and have more fun with the people you are with. I read an article where a group of friends would put their phones in the center of the table, and the first person to touch their phone had to pay for everyone’s meal. I think it would make meals more personal if no one was on their phones.   Summary:  Cell-phone use has been an issue for a long time now. Take a break from your screen and enjoy everything around you.