I will admit it, I’m attached to my iPhone. I would never consider going anywhere without it and I start to get stressed when my battery is low. My life basically fell apart in the few days after I broke my phone. But as a society, are we too attached? I think so.

Turn on a televised sporting event. Notice that over half of the crowd in attendance is on a cell phone. Now, look around in class. Most people are busy texting or checking Twitter. When you are out to dinner, look around the restaurant. Count the number of people who are not on their phones.

Cellular devices were meant to be mediums of rapid communication. Today, they are turning into barriers between real, authentic communication.

I don't want to have a heart-to-heart with someone who is too busy texting a friend to even listen to me. And I certainly don’t want to have dinner with you if you plan to spend the time posting an Instagram of your entrée and Snapchatting the event to your 200 “friends.” And seriously, do you really need to call your sister while we are trying to watch the finale of The Bachelor?

I understand the extreme usage of a phone. We are in college, trying to live it up and capture every moment and memory while doing so. So I totally get why you want to take a picture to post to Instagram. What I don’t get is when a form of social media takes precedence over a person.

I was always taught to never, ever use my phone at the dinner table. Family dinners were meant for sharing stories and catching up with one another. If I even brought my phone to the table, my mother would quickly tell me to go put it somewhere else. At first, this rule was completely obnoxious to me. Why did my conversations have to stop just because we were eating? Just because I was on my phone didn’t mean I was not still listening.

But per usual, my mom was right. If you are on your phone, you are not fully engaged with the people around you. You are really not engaged at all. In fact, you are basically putting up a barrier to communication.

Why is it so important for us to document every moment of our lives? Is it possible that we can have a good time without having media proof to show for it?

The average person spends four years of their lives on their phone. What are we missing out on by putting up these communication barriers? Are these touch screens making us lose touch with the people around us?