Smart Phones are a great way to stay connected with family and friends. But if you find yourself stuck in this tech vacuum instead of engaging in the real world, it is time to take a step back.

Recognizing you have a problem is the first step to recovery. Here are the 7 signs that let you know you have an addiction to your smartphone:

1. You check your phone constantly, even when there are no alerts
2. You are on social media for more than 2 hours a day
3. You hear your phone buzzing when its not
4. You lose your phone while its your hand
5. You’ve had a panic attack while losing your phone
6. The first thing you do in the morning is check your phone
7. You sleep with your phone under your pillow

If you have experienced two or more of the following symptoms, its time to take back control of your life. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. A recent poll in Time Magazine’s Techland section conducted an international poll of 5,000 Americans, Britons, South Koreans, Chinese, Indians, South Africans, Indonesians and Brazilians that resulted in the following stats:

– 84 percent of respondents said that they could not go a single day without their cell phones.

– 50 percent of Americans sleep with their phone next to them like a teddy bear or a spouse, a number that includes more than 80 percent of 18-24 year olds.

– 20 percent of respondents check their phone every 10 minutes.

If you can relate to these statistics, you may have what researchers are now calling nomophobia. As funny as this sounds, this is a serious issue that can affect our lives and how we  communicate. This human interaction is crucial to how we live our lives. If our heads are constantly buried in our phones, we will never be able to truly experience the world around us. So I ask you to answer the question: Could you go a day without your phone?

After asking around the school, I received the following answers:

“I’ve gone a week without my phone. Sometimes phones are distracting. and when you don’t have it you notice things more.” Camila Garcia- Molina

“You lose communication that you don’t have” Julia Cogdill

“No. I have an attachment” Elenna Moore

“Yeah. I’m not a very good at texting anyway.” Cara Dawson