I am guilty of it. I don’t think I go on my phone that much, but by the end of the day, I’ve spent several hours on it. I take a few minutes here to send a couple texts and a few minutes there to go check all my social media accounts. I always told myself that'd I’d never be one of those people who is stuck to a screen all day, but here I am. I probably spend at least three hours on my phone every day. Three hours! The more I think about it, the crazier it seems. I don’t sit down for three hours and just look at my phone. I spread it out, which is probably why it doesn’t feel like I’ve wasted so much time.

No matter where I go, there is a 99 percent chance that my phone is right there with me. Even when I try to escape looking at a screen, I can’t. I’ll want to travel to a new place to go on a new adventure, but I have to pull it up on the GPS. There is no pulling out an old map, trying to find my way, getting lost and finding a super cool hidden gem. There is only Google Maps redirecting me so that I’m on the fastest route. There is no walking around a little town asking local residents for the best place to eat, there is only a Yelp search for the restaurant with the best reviews.

Even when I think I’m out being adventurous and living in the moment, I’m still living through my phone. Without a doubt, the services provided by my phone have made my life so much easier. What I didn’t realize, at first, was that they have also changed my perspective. My camera on my phone has completely changed the way I take pictures. Instead of turning on my digital camera and waiting for the lens to pop out and for the home screen to go away, all I have to do is swipe up on my phone’s lock screen. The simplicity and speed of the camera make it possible to capture just about anything in a matter of a few seconds.

Sounds great, right? Well, it is! But at the same time it isn't. People go to sporting events and graduations and parties and view everything from behind their phone screens. Sure, taking a few pictures is fun, and they're great to have for later, but is it really necessary to take hundreds and hundreds of photos? Are these people even going to look back at all 700 pictures of that baseball game? I can go on Snapchat and look at people’s stories of their vacations and concerts and feel like I was there (because I basically saw everything they saw from their story).

The one that gets me the most -- that also happens to be a trending topic, right now -- is weddings. The couples getting married are having to put up signs asking their guests to not go on their phones during the ceremony. Taking pictures is great, but the line has to be drawn at some point out of respect for whatever or whomever is involved in the event that you are trying to capture.

Only looking through the phone’s camera and video camera narrows our vision. We see the main subject of the photo but miss out on the surrounding details. By constantly looking at our phones and trying to capture the perfect picture, we are missing out on the perfect moments.