Over the past weeks, a select group of friends have been complaining about my lateness in answering their calls, texts, WhatsApp messages, IMs, Twitter/Instagram/Facebook updates, and pretty much any online call to action that requires my attention in social media that is controlled by perhaps the most important device in our lives in current times: the cell phone.

This led me to ask an inevitable question: Am I really not answering and responding to my personal messages/calls as fast as I should, or are my friends falling for the ‘Cell Phone Addiction’?

Let’s begin by defining this concept.

The ‘Cell Phone Addiction’ is a phrase I came up with after watching two of my friends conducting several activities over the course of five days, such as: watching movies, playing cards, cooking, taking care of their garden, driving, grocery shopping. During the exercise, at all times my friends would immediately respond to any notification received on their cell phones. Give or take, they would respond in less than ten seconds. When I was at work -meaning, not watching them-, my friends would call me and at times I was not able to take their calls (meetings, driving, jobsite). When I was able to get a hold of my phone, I would notice that I would have five or six missed calls from the same contact. Needless to say, after I called back, the matter needed to be discussed over the call was far from being an emergency, and more like a “What are we doing for dinner tonight?”

When engaged in a chat with someone, (IE: WhatsApp), they would complain about how that person would take several minutes to respond to a chat, having seen the double blue checkmark: “He left me double-blue checked! How dare he?” Other times they would see a notification pop-up on their locked phones, but then they would not unlock it or login to WhatsApp, arguing that: “I can’t login, because if I do, people will see I’m online and I haven’t answered their messages.”

So now that I have given an insight of my friend’s relationship with their phones, I will share mine.

When I open my house’s door, the first thing that I look at is my large beautiful and comfortable couch to my left. When I enter, I normally drop my keys and my cell phone on the table next to my door, then I proceed to wash my hands and my face, take off my shoes, get myself into comfortable clothes, and land on my beautiful and comfortable couch. I do this because I place more importance in taking care of myself, than taking care of my phone’s contact list, which I can do at a later time, preferably, after I have settled myself in my home.

When I’m at work I focus on my work responsibilities, and I rarely check my personal phone. I do this because my job pays my bills; answering personal calls/IMs does not. If I have nothing to do at work, work is slow, or I am on a break, I can borrow a few minutes to check my personal phone, otherwise, I don’t touch it until after work hours. Did you know that 58% of cell phone users cannot go more than an hour without checking their phones? One can only wonder how much work can they get done?

When I’m driving, well… I’d rather pay attention to the road than to my phone. When I play cards with my friends, I pay attention to the game, even when it’s not my turn. I like to win, therefore my phone is a distraction.

I have no blocks or filters on my WhatsApp: anyone can see my last online time, my double blue checks, my icon, and so on. I understand the fact that there are people who deserve or expect an immediate response, but is that percentage really that high?

Finally, when I go out with someone I like to focus on the person I’m with and enjoy spending time with them.

This is why I believe that there is no excuse that can withhold to anyone going five minutes without checking their phones, especially if it is in an environment like the ones I exposed earlier. If you feel you have a few things in common with the friends I just described, perhaps you already share the symptoms of a cell phone addict. If that is the case, then the best thing you can do is admit you have a problem of dependency. You should start working on a solution to get rid of you addiction and enjoy the pleasures of life that do not need you to be hanging on to your phone.

Some tips to start working on losing the dependency to your phone include:

1. Monitor your cell phone usage: it may be shocking at first, but once you find out you have been using your phone for more than five hours a day, reality will hit you hard. Five hours is a lot of time. Also, do a detail search on the usage per app.

2. Create no-phone time zones: give yourself a period of time when you simply do not check your phone. Cook, eat your meal, whatever you do, just put it away and let it ring.

3. Turn off your phone when driving: safety comes first. Whatever is happening to your friends when you are behind the wheel, there is little you can do to change it while you are driving. If you really need to check it because of an urgent matter, then make a stop at a gas station.

4. Find a friend you can talk to who is not a cell phone addict: perhaps that person will have a thing or two to teach you about enjoying things in life that are not cell phone related.

5. Turn off your cell when going to bed: pretty much similar to #3. Of course, some conditions and exceptions apply. Like for instance if you are a parent waiting for your daughter to inform she arrived safely at her date destination, or if you are waiting for them to get home. But if your daughter is in another country, there is not much you can do about her, so let her live. The rest of the world can wait until tomorrow.

6. Think and measure the need to answer: ask yourself questions such as “Do I really need to call/text this person right now?” and “Is this a life-threatening situation or is this a mundane event that can be taken care of later?”

7. Find a hobby: perhaps you are using your phone as a mood thermometer, which means you feel better when you use it and when people respond quickly to your texts, and you get upset when you don’t use it and people do not respond to your online activities.

8. No devices at meals: if you are by yourself, just eat. If you have company, enjoy your company. If you don’t enjoy your company, be polite.

9. Don’t use your phone as an alarm clock: get an actual alarm clock and leave your phone downstairs / outside your room.

I do not have all answers, and as I stated at the beginning, I admit that I may respond to personal messages / calls a bit slower than other people do. However I will say that answering to every single notification in less than ten seconds is not good either. I feel that one must learn how to balance the two extremes, and manage their relationship with their phone. Unless you are an influencer who requires absolute control of their cell phone, ask yourself the question if handling your cell phone is managing your social life.

HR