Hannah Jones /Winonan

I cannot be without my phone.

This is a simple fact that I have grown, if reluctantly, to accept, and it’s a fact that many of my peers can admit to. We do not leave our homes without our phones. We’re constantly on them, contacting friends and family, checking back with various appointments, and of course, sending straight-up gangster selfies to everyone in between.

However, they’re no longer just essential to maintaining our social and academic obligations. With the Smartphone’s new Internet capability, it has fast become less of a communication medium and more of a companion.

It distracts us, entertains us, and occupies us conveniently while we are waiting in line, sitting through a particularly boring class period, or using the bathroom. You know a device has become a staple in your life when you can’t pee without it.

One can expound for hours on the virtues and the wondrous capability of these devices, but one can spend just as long pointing out the obvious flaw in our relationship with our cellphones: we are entirely too dependent on them.

The other day, I did the unthinkable. I left my phone at the apartment.

I did this completely on accident, throwing my stuff together and hopping out the door in time to catch the shuttle, leaving the poor apparatus sitting lonely on my kitchen counter. Of course, when I realized on campus that my cellphone wasn’t in my pocket, I did what any rational person would have done.

I panicked.

Instantly, I feverishly thought of all the texts I was missing, all the calls from potential internships and jobs going unanswered, all the notifications from my apps reminding me to play.

Hypothetical situations crept into my head. What if, on my way to the library, I was jumped by an insane criminal, and nobody was around to see it? What if I got hit by or stuffed into the trunk of someone’s dented Nissan? What if my apartment caught fire and none of my roommates had their keys?

What if I developed a spontaneous food allergy to peanuts and my swollen windpipe prevented me from shouting for aid?—this I thought as I shoved yet another nervous handful of trail mix into my mouth.

I was certain something horrible would happen to me, simply because I didn’t have my phone.

At lunch, in the Smaug, I noticed everyone around me gently petting the screens of their phones and cringed in jealousy. The people around me all had their phones placed conveniently at their elbows, ready for quick and easy reference.

They mostly checked their screens every 30 seconds and absentmindedly conversed with the people around them, their true focus elsewhere.

I recognized in them how I would have behaved if I had had my phone with me. Without my phone, I was forced to actually put all of my attention into the conversation I was having with my tablemate. I had to entertain myself while waiting in line. I had to go to the bathroom—and just go to the bathroom.

My day was spontaneous, organic and unstructured without a little machine keeping me hooked up to the outside world. It was free of distractions, and it passed slowly, moment by moment.

And, in short, it was terrifying. I packed up my stuff and prepared for the hike back to the apartment as soon as I could slip away.

When I finally got back and found my phone sitting where I left it on the counter, I practically broke my scrolling finger while unlocking the screen and prepared to do some major damage control.

I was bracing myself for all the outraged texts: “Where are you?” “Why aren’t you talking to me?” “Did you get hit by a Nissan? Respond, otherwise I’m assuming you got hit by a Nissan.” “I’m guessing it’s okay if I do my photojournalism assignment on your underwear drawer. Just let me know if it’s not.”

My finger slid across the screen, and it lit up. I opened up my message folder.

Two. I had two messages. One of them was a brief closing comment from a friend, and the other was a question about a club meeting that night. I answered them both in about a minute.

I realized then that my panic over not having my phone was less about the likelihood of missing something momentous without it and more about the separation anxiety we all get when we part from something we spend so much time caring for and engaging.

Just a few hours without my phone, and I had gone into withdrawal.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be so clingy with our phones. Although they keep us in touch with a world outside our own, they sometimes cause us to lose touch with our immediate surroundings, including the people we’re with. I considered all this as I picked up my phone, felt its weight in my palm, wondered what would happen if I lived without it altogether. Then I realized I had to go to the bathroom.

And I took my phone with me.

Contact Hannah at [email protected]