When my parents gave me my first cell phone, I was not thankful or excited, but resentful.

Even at a young age, I had heard plenty of stories about people becoming addicted to their cell phones and being unable to live without them. However exaggerated these stories might have been, they were at the forefront of my mind as I angrily refused to use a phone I never wanted for the first few days.

Now, I check my email, update my to-do list and listen to music every day using my phone. It’s safe to say that I can’t live without it now, even if I were not in college.

My opinion regarding cell phone addiction hasn’t changed; however, I know I am addicted now and I know it’s a problem. Frequently, I’ll go on walks while listening to music, automatically reach for my phone when my computer is slow and sometimes just spend hours scrolling and watching YouTube when I ought to be doing something else.

The intensity of my cell phone addiction became apparent after a 24-hour blackout last summer. Without electricity to use or charge our devices, my family was forced to severely limit the time we spent on our phones and computers.

We all had the day to ourselves since my brother and I were on break and my parents had the day off because of the blackout. Despite this, we did absolutely nothing all day besides eat, sleep and occasionally play with our cats.

We had no deficit of things we could do, such as go on a walk, hang out at one of the nearby parks, watch a movie at a theater, read a book, play with our cats more, exercise and so on. Even then, my brother and I spent most of the day in our rooms, doing effectively nothing, while our parents did equally as much in our living room.

Whenever I sit out in public, I can clearly see people suffering from the same issue. Every time I eat in the dining hall and look around, everyone who isn’t with a friend is on their phone or wearing headphones. Every time I sit down in my residence hall’s lobby, I see everyone else in the room staring at their phone or laptop.

Cutting my phone out of my life isn’t an option; I still need it to communicate with my family while at college, and I need to check my email for important alerts regarding school or work. But seriously reducing the time I spend staring at my phone is necessary.

I don’t have enough spare time for watching hours of YouTube entertainment, and I don’t want to end up paralyzed without my phone again. Acknowledging that I don’t always need to listen to music and that I can live without my phone always within arm’s reach is a start.

Every minute I can save by not looking at my phone is a minute I can spend on something better. It may be tempting to doomscroll or “quickly” look something up from time to time, but when that happens, try to find something else you can do.

You might enjoy it more than using your cell phone.