Social Media [Anxiety...Disorder]?

Photo courtesy of Updatec.

How many times were you late for work because you left your cell phone at home? How often do you spend checking your email, texting your mom and updating your Pintrest in one day? More importantly, what would Neil Postman say about this?

The fear of being without a cell phone, also known as no-mobile-phone phobia or nomophobia, is rising higher than my blood pressure. The first time my coworkers told me about this, I was left quite verbally challenged but I had to see how serious it was. While reading the Daily News, I learned that people check their phones up to 34 times a say. I could be surprised but I'm not because when there is a new gadget and media platform coming out every week, everyone wants to stay in the know, or at least catch up.

My sister just told me how convenient it was to have the internet in our hands. I had an immediate flashback of ALF using the computer to play the stock market on the internet...circa 1986. Then it hit me that the internet has been around a lot longer than we think. Obviously the over-usage of mobile technology has become the antagonist to face time (not the app), i.e. family time, best friend togetherness, and using stamps, pens, and paper to write letters.

And the workplace...? With unemployment going up and down like a lover's quarrel, technology can be a poison on the clock. Heaven forbid if your twiddling fingers get caught on your phone during company time, it's a rap. What about the piece I found about connecting with friends on Twitter, Facebook and Zynga being better than relations?

According to Robert Weinstein's article on TechBiz, many people are finding more pleasure from 'likes,' 'pokes,' and 'shares' on Facebook than from that deed married folks do. Being too young for that deed, I can still understand how much of an impact it has on the human race. It is possible to communicate without a cell phone; it has been done before.

Even before I was Apple-phoned over the summer, I have torn up my place and my mom's place looking for my phone, and I still do sometimes. There is no need to go into panic mode. Just keep your phone in plain sight at home, and keep it where you can grab for easy access on the go. Keep it charged or pack a travel charger if you are going to your friend's house or Starbucks, I know there are outlets there. Learn to discipline yourself with your phone.

iPhones, smartphones and touch screens, oh my! Sometimes it baffles me how we lived without them before. But like I said a couple of paragraphs ago, it is possible to reach out to friends and family without social media. If you can survive one hour from inactivity on Twitter, signed out of Pinterest, and logged off LinkedIn, trust me; it's going to be okay. Have dinner with your love muffin with your cell phone turned off. The voicemail will still be working (anyone remember If You Don't Know, You Don't Go, IYDKYDG).

Spend time with mom and dad or G-ma and Grand Pop Pop. Even if you have to tell your Facebook buddies, "Out tonight with the fam," I'm sure someone will like it.