To begin, I would like to acknowledge the irony of writing a piece on our dependence on cell phones and social media for the intention of being shared often on said social media sites.

However, even as I draft this article in a Starbucks in Chelsea, I can see almost every person on the street or in the store interacting with their handheld electronic worlds. Most are staring down at their phone in various stages of attention, either ignoring the people they are with or ignoring the woman struggling with the door on this windy day.

I don't know when it became normal to distract yourself with any available piece of technology when faced with an awkward, discomforting or even remotely boring situation. I do know that some part of me is frightened by how quick we are to mindlessly entertain ourselves rather than take a moment and just be.

The other part of me anxiously refreshes Twitter while I wait on a crowded subway platform or flicks through Instagram at lightning speed in an elevator full of people. What I am grappling to understand is when you will stop? Let’s say you are out to dinner with friends, it’s not a special occasion, everyone just wanted Italian food, and someone picks up their phone to respond to a text. Then in domino effect, each person is staring down at the screen in front of them and the conversion is gone. Have we forgotten how to simply talk about nothing and everything or just speak in person?

Is it the constant connection to a world that feels larger than the little life you lead and the snapshots we see of each other’s lives that make social media feel both fascinating and isolating? I do not have these answers. I only notice what happens around me, and maybe these are localized experiences. For instance, my mother recently visited me and for two full days, I barely touched my phone. I missed next to nothing from my 607 Twitter friends, but I saw New York City in a different light.

You lose all the little things when you are distracted with your music, a text, the latest Instagram post from Adele and there is a lot to miss. Talking with my mother felt different because without the everyday literal closeness we shared for 18 years, I had forgotten how to tell a story.

I have been condensing my life into 140 characters or a square photo to be shared instantly that having a chronological conversation took effort. Is it the wave of the future to only have sound bites of real life, or should we be making an active attempt to communicate more elaborately? Now more than ever, in the wake of the attacks and catastrophes over the world, it is important that we know how to state exactly what we mean and what needs to be said.

I sense that many people are either using their phones to ignore the realities of their surroundings or to create a false, enhanced version of their experiences to show off to people they have never met. Social media has become both a crutch for us within society and a means of simple expression that hinders true conversation.