Are you a slave to your cell phone? Can you go a day without it? I bet you can’t. Teenagers today are addicted to using cell phones. Look around you and see how many people are on their phones right now. Unbelievable, right? Just back in the 1990s people survived without them, but why is it that teenagers today can’t? Even though phones can be a great tool, they can also be your worst enemy.

We asked some students if they could live one day without their phones. The responses were affirmative. What about two days we asked? No way! Most of them admitted that it is even hard to go without a phone for a day. One student said if he leaves his phone at home and he notices it on his way to school, he goes back to get it. Even if it means that he is late for school. To put this in perspective, we asked him if he would do the same for a textbook. The answer was no.

Phones are a great tool for taking pictures, but can it become an obligation to snap shots of everything you do? Students talked about their friends who took photos of every little aspect of their lives. “Though most of it is not interesting and I don’t understand how they can enjoy themselves at the same time,” commented one student. Could it be that our digital memories are robbing us of real life experiences?

An argument against the use of cellphones is that they become digital and physical barriers to communication. More and more often, every spare minute is an occasion to get on our mobile devices. Just look around you at break time. What do you see? Tops of heads hunched over phones. Does anyone talk these days? Is your phone hindering your oral communication skills?

In some ways phones are essential in our everyday lives. This buddy that never leaves our side, is there to help us with every problem we meet. If you get lost, you have your GPS. If you don’t remember your appointments, you have your calendar. If you can’t keep up in class, you can take a picture of the board. These and many more functions are what make phones our best pals.