Yes, you read the headline correctly. Up until summer before I left for college, I lived life without a cell phone. My parents possess the unpopular opinion that children don't need to own cell phones, and that I would have to save up and buy my own phone if I really wanted one. As I was an extremely busy high school student, I wasn't in a place where I was financially stable enough to do this until I was about to leave for college.

Now you may be thinking that my parents are crazy for letting me live life without a phone, (a life where they had no way of tracking my every move or knowing where I was unless I used a friend's phone to contact them,) but in all honesty, I am grateful for the decisions they made. It may have sucked at the time, but looking back I understand the method behind their madness. Not having a phone has made me a much more competent communicator, and has made it easier for me to be social in uncomfortable situations. It forced me to live in reality, and allowed me to grow into the person that I am today.

Now of course, there are pros and cons to this situation. Pro: I had so much freedom. I was never tied down to social media, to texting, or to worrying about what other people were doing. I was forced to live fully in every moment, and this was absolutely wonderful. On the other hand though, my parents literally had no way of knowing where I was. I could have gotten in a car accident or have broken down, and no one would have had a clue.

That being said, I think there could have been a more healthy balance in this situation. Not having a phone until I was eighteen years old was extremely liberating and allowed me to live in the moment at all times, but it also put me in danger on more than a few occasions. In my opinion, if a person is old enough for their parents to let them out of the house by themselves, they should have some way of getting ahold of people in case of an emergency.

However, this is not to say that kids should have smart phones as their first phones. I am a firm believer in the idea that children shouldn't have cell phones until they're teenagers, but once they do get one, it doesn't have to be able to do anything other than text and call. I realize that these phones are becoming obsolete in our quickly advancing world, but would it be such a bad thing if middle schoolers didn't have access to the whole world through their screens, and were actually forced to embrace the one around them?

If you take a look around, some children as young as 8 (probably younger,) have their own smart phones. How is this helping them to learn about the world outside of their screens? How is it helping them become social in a sense other than social media? We need to learn to become less dependent on our phones. It shouldn't be the social norm for everyone to be so antisocial.

As someone who survived her first eighteen years on this planet without a cell phone, I promise it is not the end of the world living without one. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Because of my lack of connection to what was going on anywhere other than right where I was, I was able to develop a greater appreciation for nature, for living fully in the present, and for the people and places around me. I'm not saying that cell phones aren't important, because clearly there is a need for them in our society, but I believe that we need to focus more on what's in the world around us rather than what's on the screens in front of us.

The world is your oyster. Don't forget to put your phone down and appreciate it every once in a while.