I looked at the clock. I sprang out of bed. The bus was leaving in sixteen minutes and I had to make it to class on time. I grabbed jeans from the day before and a crewneck and ran to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, then my hair and I reached for my phone to check the time and... It went crashing against the bathroom tile. I looked at it in horror: it didn't have a case on it. I had taken it off the night before because I didn't like how thick it was and I hadn't put it back on yet. I had never broken a phone before.
I picked it up and sure enough, the front screen was shattered. A chunk of glass was missing from the bottom left corner, a cascade of fractures ran across the screen. My phone looked like it had a giant, intricate spider web etched into it. I was late for the bus and had to run to class.
Flash-forward to today, my parents gave permission for me to drive to Park City mall, about 45 minutes from my house, to go to the Apple store to replace my phone screen. Only one problem: it would take over an hour to fix. I would be phone-less.
I'll admit, in high school, my phone was basically an extension of my arm. I felt naked when it wasn't in my pocket or within reach. I was constantly on it, constantly checking for notifications even when there wasn't a buzz or ding.
But nowadays, I've severed that extra limb. I've made efforts to put my phone down more often. I thought, "This won't be so bad. It's only an hour or so and this is a huge mall." I wasn't too worried about being separated from my phone. Then I handed it to the Apple employee.
"Check back in about an hour," she said.
Okay, no biggie. I decided to go to my favorite store, American Eagle. They had my favorite style of shorts on sale, and they had my size. I had texted my mom about it earlier that day and she said if they had her size she wanted... Crap, what did she say she wanted, again? I reached to my pocket to check what she said... and then I remembered I didn't have my phone.
Luckily, it came back to me: she wanted white jeans. I found them, got them and my shorts, and found a super cute pair of giraffe pants as bonus. In the changing room, I tried the giraffe pants on and loved them. I wanted to send my friends a snap of my find, and see what they thought. I reached for my pocket again, and again found it to be empty. It felt weird.
I thought, "It's got to have been around an hour by now." So, you guessed it, I reached for my phone to check the time. That's when I realized just how much I rely on my phone. I thought that by cutting back on texting, I was cutting back on my attachment to the device. But I didn't consider all the little things I use it for: checking the time, rereading a text I don't remember, looking at my calendar, sending a picture, asking a question. I am so much more dependent than I thought. I challenge you, and myself, to count how many times we look at our phones each day, so it's no longer a mystery how dependent we are.
