Hi.
My name is Sam and I am an addict.
No, I am not addicted to drugs. I am not addicted to alcohol or painkillers or anything that could physically harm my body. I can honestly say I have never even tried them.
But what I am addicted to could possibly be considered worse and I am not the only one with a problem.
It all started when I entered sixth grade. For Christmas, my parents bought me a cell phone—the Juke. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this older piece of technology, the Juke was a music player offered exclusively by Verizon Wireless. The Samsung product could be swiveled so that it could be used to call and text. It was basically a flip phone.
This was the beginning of the addiction.
There wasn't much to do with the Juke. We had not yet reached the point where internet connection was no longer a choice of an upgrade. I was limited to calling and texting. The most exciting thing about the phone was the fact that it doubled as an iPod.
When I was in eighth grade, my two-year contract with Verizon ended and I was able to upgrade to the LG enV Touch. It was, in a way, still a flip phone, however, the outside of the phone had a touch screen and many different purposes. When flipped open, it had a full QWERTY keyboard, a definite improvement from the numbered one on the Juke.
While the EnV was definitely an upgrade from the previous phone, it was still rather limited. It had the ability to connect to the internet, but the feature was an add-on with an additional cost and my mom refused to pay it. The touch screen allowed for different activities, including a drawing app and a few games. Other than that, the only things left to do were call and text.
At this point, the addiction hadn't really progressed, only slightly. It was the next two phones I was given that made it drastically worsen.
I upgraded to an iPhone 5 during my sophomore year of high school. As we all know, the iPhone has many different features which would take a good amount of time to identify and explain. For me, the most prominent part of the upgrade was the ability to connect to the internet. Not only could I surf the web, but I could access Facebook and Instagram, as well as other forms of social media whenever I wanted to.
The addiction grew.
My next upgrade was during my freshman year of college—the iPhone 6 plus. It wasn't much of a change from the iPhone 5, just simple and necessary adjustments as well as an increase in size. I have had people refer to it as a mini tablet, a cookie sheet, a brick, etc. The size amazes people— I have gotten used to it.
Before I had the iPhone, I did not really use Facebook. I had an account and I posted statuses on it, but I did not use it excessively. I did not even have an Instagram. It wasn't until the purchase of the smart phone that I began to frequent these apps.
It went downhill from there.
I went from barely using social media to not being able to live without it. I do not really post on Facebook anymore, but I check the app almost every five minutes. I now have around 440 pictures on Instagram, and I check that just as much as I do Facebook. I began to snapchat much more once I graduated high school in an effort to stay in tough with my friends and I downloaded Yik Yak when I started college and began posting on there.
Social media seems like a benefit to most of us. We see it as a way to connect with people, communicate, share what is going on in our lives. That is its intended purpose, what it was created for. But we fail to see the affect it is having on our society.
I cannot go five minutes without checking my phone. If it is not within my reach or in eyesight, I begin to panic. This generation has created an addiction so strong, most of us deny it even exists. But if you walk into a coffee shop or a restaurant or even into a movie theater, it becomes blatantly obvious. We have begun to socialize less in person and more online, even when the person we are communicating with is sitting right across from us. We need to put down the technology and actually talk to each other, but that will not happen until we acknowledge the fact that we have a problem.
My name is Sam and I am addicted to my phone.
Your turn.
