I recently returned from a ten day trip to France and Spain with a group of 19 high school students, and a total of nine adults. I was prepared for ten days of limited technology and zero cell phone service, mainly due to cost of overseas use, but I can't say the same for the others I was traveling with.

Being away made me see how truly addicted teenagers are to their devices and social media, but it also made me see that the technology problem is all over the world and within every generation.

The rise of technology addiction has been very obvious in the last few years. We are all overly attached to our iPhones, tablets, laptops, etc; me included. The majority of my college coursework is online, along with communication between professors and potential job opportunities. Many people refuse to take phone calls now, but they will respond to text messages within seconds, even older people would prefer to text now.

There is constant criticism of my generation, the millennials, but why aren't we taking a harder look at every age group?

It became an every night occasion for students and chaperones alike to ask servers in the restaurant if they had WiFi. In some cases, they had already found the WiFi network for the restaurant and have to play a game of charades with the servers to try to get the password because they understood very little English. Most dinners became consumed by students staring at their phones. It seemed more important to be checking Snapchat, likes on Instagram, and iMessaging people at home than eating their meals and talking to their peers.

One morning, a student actually almost fell down the stairs because he was so intently looking at his phone and not paying attention to the stairs. We happened to be on a bus for many hours at a time when traveling to Barcelona and then to Madrid. The bus was equipped with USB ports in the ceiling, two at every seat. At any given time one could turn around and see 10-15 cords hanging from the ceiling charging phones. I believe one student even made the comment, "The only things that would make this bus better would be WiFi."

I don't want to single out the group of teenagers, though, because they aren't the only ones with an addiction to technology. I will gladly admit that some nights when wifi was accessible, I would check in with my friends and family here in the United States. Did I throw a fit when I couldn't log in? No. I had a good book to read and a journal to write in. Most nights, we were so exhausted from our long days of sightseeing and walking the cities that I went to bed right after a shower and a little journal time. My mom turned her phone on often to check in with work, talk to my Dad on their anniversary, and receive birthday wishes since we spent it in France. The other adults were also frequently looking for the wifi or using their phones. Pictures needed to be posted, emails needed to be checked, and phone calls to home had to be made.

Citizens of France and Spain were just as guilty of this technology takeover.

One day in Nice (pronounced "niece"), a small city in southern France, a man actually almost walked into us because he was too busy texting and not paying attention. The man almost walked into a crowd of 28 Americans and a French tour guide because it was more important for him to be texting than paying attention to where he was going. When riding the metro, we would see people texting, FaceTiming, or even playing games just to pass a few minutes between stops. In restaurants, local families would sit down for dinner and they would all be on their phones, something we also see in the United States. Kids in today's world, and when I say kids I mean 5-14 years old, are given devices in order to entertain themselves while their parents are busy on their own.

To end my observation of the control technology has on us all, I pose a question: What are we going to do about this? What steps are we going to take to limit the time we spend buried in our phones, limit the time spent worried about using too much data or finding WiFi, or to start spending more time with the people around us instead of checking social media and texting? I challenge you as readers to put your phones down for a few hours a day. Try to sit in a restaurant and not check your phones, but instead be engaged in conversation with the people around you. We are missing the things going on in front of us by spending so much time buried in our devices. Do you accept the challenge?