I Can't Go Without It

I'm not sure how I ever lived without a smart phone. I've only had one for about 3 years but I honestly can't remember what I did before I had it. My iPhone is with me almost 24/7 and I've found that I can't go to sleep without it being close to me, crazy I know. I feel so lost without it and have those little panic attacks when I can't find it.

My iPhone is everything in one; ipod, gps, Internet, email, games, social networking sites, it actually makes calls, which I use it the least for, and so much more. Anything that I need or want to know I can go on my phone and find it, who would have ever thought 10 years ago that would even be possible? Everything we need is in the palm of our hand and we don't have to have near as many gadgets as we use to. In a way it's made our life a simpler but in a way it's made it a lot busier and stressful as well.

I've noticed that I'm on my phone almost constantly checking twitter or something and I realize it takes time away from me actually interacting with my family. At one point I had Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, a blog and foursquare that I felt like I had to keep updated daily. It got way too overwhelming and I had to just forget about most of them. It was a social network overload and my real life just doesn't have time for all of them. I started to ignore Alyssa and her wanting to play and I realized there's special little moments that I'm missing out on with her because I'm too busy with my nose in my phone. I'd be lying if I said I've cut down my phone use tremendously but I do put it down to play with her, to go make those special little memories and spend more time with my family. She's only little once and is growing up so fast, I have to cherish those little moments I get with her and make memories that will last forever with her.

The main two social sites I use now are Twitter and my blog, I still have a Facebook but don't check it too often or post things to it hardly. Still have Google+ and Tumblr but deleted the apps my phone, so I have no use for them anymore. As for foursquare, if I'm someplace interesting I might check in on it but as for everyday check ins, I don't do them anymore. My life is stressful enough and feeling like I had to keep all of those sites updated multiple times daily was way to overwhelming and stressful for me. Twitter, however, is something I can't seem to get myself away from. The longest I've went without posting something on it is just a little over a day and even then I still got on and checked it just not tweet anything myself. I have no clue why I can't stay off of it and enjoy checking it so much. I've found that I so want people to talk to me on there and I fee left out when no one is, how crazy is that?!? As I'm writing this, I'm asking people on Twitter if they would read it if I post this blog, if that's not a sign of addiction, I don't know what is. I enjoy knowing that people care what I have to say and I like that attention that I get when people reply to me about something I've said. I can be my crazy, random self and I don't worry about if people enjoy it or not cause I feel like if they didn't then they wouldn't be following me, like I said in a previous post, I'm not holding a gun to their head forcing them to follow me.

I've often thought about trying to go without checking Twitter at all for at least a day just to see if I could do it but haven't been able to do that yet. I could attempt it but I feel like if there was no reward for me in the end or some kind of competition with it then I'll never go through with it, sounds ridiculous but that's just how I am. Do any of you have an addiction to social networking site like me? Would you be willing to give it up for 24 hrs and not look at it or post anything to it at all? What about your phone, could you go without it for a whole day?