You're Gonna Have To Face It You're Addicted

There's a new app that will confirm exactly how much of your life is wasted staring at your cell phone.

The free app called "Moment" monitors your daily cell phone usage and has features that allow you to set limits and reminders when you are approaching those limits.
The app's designer, Kevin Holesh, said he created the app after realizing he "had a serious problem" with cell phone addiction.
We all do. In 2013, the annual Internet Trends report by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers reported the average smart phone user checks their phone 150 times per day. And during peak time, which is 5-8pm, people checked their phone once every 6 or 7 seconds. Well, you got to see who clicked like on that sexy instagram pic of your dinner.
So today, in preparation for writing this, I tried to keep track of the number of times I looked at my phone and I lost count it was so insanely frequent.
I honestly don't think I could handle finding out the exact amount. Nor would I take kindly to an annoying alarm going off on my phone when I am using it too much. I know I have a problem. I don't need an app to tell me that. And, lucky for me, since I have an Android, this app is not even available for my phone yet. So I can continue to exist in blissful ignorance and denial.
Despite being totally addicted, I often find myself thinking about how I would live without a smart phone. How would I know where to go? How would I amuse myself when I'm bored? How would I settle an argument with friends without Google to prove my point? How would I even find my friends? I am pretty convinced without a smart phone I'd be a shut in or laying dead and lost in a gutter.
This reminds me of how my friend's android cell phone came with a bizarre default setting that when she went to wake it up, the home screen said "Life Companion" and we used to make fun of her for that. But really calling it a "Life Companion" is the cold hard truth. I wouldn't dream of going anywhere without my phone. Our phones go places with us that you wouldn't even want another human-like the bathroom. Face it, we are all Linus and our cell phones are our blankets.

Also, it must be said that post comes on the heels of another recent post about a deadly disaster in China that occurred when people tried to help a woman rescue her cell phone from a cesspool.
We need help. Or blankets.

The Hole Story

"2 Dead, Several Injured After Phone Falls Into Toilet"
I saw the headline while scrolling through news and social media on my phone, and, understandably, I assumed it was from The Onion. But later, I learned this was not a caustic and witty commentary on our society's gross dependence on cell phones. Tragically it is a REAL headline describing a bizarre and horrific true story from China.
Here's what happened. A woman dropped her cell phone into an open pit toilet in the Henan provence in China. Her gallant husband then jumped into the pit filled with feces and urine to collect it for her. The smell in the cesspool was so bad, he passed out. His mother, who was with them, was so concerned for her son, who was now unconscious in a cesspool, that she jumped in as well to rescue him (and the phone.) She passed out too. And apparently, people in China are just way too nice, because this all led to several other people venturing into the stinky pits of fecal despair for this woman's phone.

So all of this culminated with the ridiculous headline above, 2 people dead, and several injured in a cesspool. Because of a phone.
We've all been there and dropped our cell phone in the toilet, off a roof, into a sewer, into the lion's cage...and in that moment of desperation we have all considered getting that phone back no matter the risk. But mostly we calm down and think, "Nope, I'll just get a new one that's not covered in poop or that I have to risk my life to get." Because it's a freakin' cell phone. It's not your child. Remember back in the 80's when Baby Jessica fell into the well? Somehow less people ended up injured or in that well with her than in this cesspool in China getting a cell phone. And she was a non-replaceable baby.
Where is our common sense? Have smart phones really made us so much dumber? How badly do we need to tweet, text, and check in? Did anyone manage to check in from the toilet pit before passing out?
The fact that this tragic disaster in the cesspool occurred is a sign that we need help as society. Ask yourself, would you be willing to wade through a hole of shit to get your phone? If your answer even included a nanosecond of pause for thought, be concerned.