“Four.”

“Minutes?”

“Hours.”

“Hours!”

My history teacher spun around, portraying his dramatically gaping mouth to the entire class.  “Four hours a day on your phone?” He yelled. “How do you people live?”

Honestly, I have no idea.

My classmate just laughed and turned obediently back to her phone.

Life goes on, and we’re few months into school, right back in sophomore U.S History.  The glorious class that seems to be nothing more than a class to teach teens how to stealthily add to your Snapchat story while the teacher is lecturing. A different girl sets a new record by casually mentioning that she spends eleven hours a day on her phone, thanks to the new Apple update that calculates your average time per day.  My history teacher doesn’t freak at this one; I don’t think he actually believes it. He asks her anyways, almost as if he were challenging her.

“What the heck do you do all day?”

She laughs like it’s a silly question.  “I’m on Facetime pretty much all throughout the school day,” she boasts to us.  “And I’m on it non-stop from the time I get home to the time I go to bed. I mean,” she giggles.  “If I go to bed.”  She flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder and I almost expect to hear a whip crack.

How could this possibly happen?  

I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

Now let’s go back several years.  Somewhere around seven, I think. Lakewood park, third grade.  Elizabeth’s birthday party. She was a nice girl, but we hardly ever talked during school.  I was somewhat surprised to be invited to her party. Since we never talked, I didn’t know what to get her, so I grabbed a friendship bracelet making kit from Five Below and hoped for the best.  You know, the default option.

She’s unwrapping gifts at her party, and I’m shocked to find that nearly all of her gifts are baby dolls.  “She loves baby dolls.”  Her older sister says.  “If you touch one of her baby dolls, she will kill you.”  My eyes widen, and I silently hope that my present is good enough.

Thankfully, my present passes as sufficient, and now, there’s only one present left; a small box, neatly wrapped in pink and green striped paper.  She picks it up, and to everyone’s surprise, it starts ringing! She gasps and opens it up, disregarding the pretty box and wrapping paper.

“A PHONE!”

My third grade ears never knew someone could scream so loud.  

Elizabeth loves her new phone.  I hate it. I think it’s stupid that an eight year old should get a phone.  I think the whole party is stupid. Why would she get baby dolls (I mean, come on, we’re in third grade here!) and a phone?  The thing reserved for scary teenagers?  It was too weird. Still, I couldn’t help but feel jealous that she now had a phone, and feel especially bad for the heap of delicate baby dolls that were ignored for the rest of the party.

I never would have guessed that in just seven years, she would be spending eleven hours a day on that stupid thing.  

How do you live?  I'm beginning to believe my history teacher hadn’t been acting so dramatically after all.  More and more frequently I want to grab my peers by the shoulders and shake them until they answer it.  How do you go about your life with a screen in your face? How can you do your homework when Instagram needs updating, or Snapchat is begging you to look at another picture of half of someone’s face and the ceiling, or Facetime is whining with another call?  How do you see your family, do the things you love, laugh, clean, cry, sleep, eat, , or even think with this thing shoved in your face?

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Why is it that when we find out that we will spend a third of our lives sleeping, we feel like we are missing out on so much, but all the while spend a whole ninth of our lives on our phones?  On average, even. Why do we so easily conform to wasting a ninth of our life when it’s something we can control?

Gradually, carelessly, that ninth is beginning to grow.  Candy Crush replaces homework. Why talk to your friends at the beginning of class when you can see what Ariana Grande had for lunch instead?  Read a book? Why would I do that?

When was the last time you played with your baby dolls?

That’s the danger.  The subtle difference that separates phones from laptops, tablets, and TVs.  In their handy dandy size, they can deviously fit right into your pocket, ensuring that they’re always with you.  Always the easier, comfortable option. Promising a landing pad to fall back on during an awkward conversation, excruciatingly boring lunch, or those few minutes before class starts.  

I truly believe that starting in third grade, Elizabeth’s “memory income” started to decrease.  Any child keeps the memories that they have of their baby dolls, but how much time spent on your phone do you remember?  How much time did she lose on her new phone until she was deemed too old to play dress up? When she’s seventy-eight and living in a nursing home, what memories is she going to look fondy back on?  Updating her instagram feed? Call me crazy, but I don’t think so.

Because is it really living when everything you experience is on a screen?  Though it’s comfortable, you miss out on so much behind the safety of your phone.  You can watch every single “People are Awesome” video out there, but you will never truly experience what it’s like.  It hurts, almost. Knowing that you spent your life looking at things that you never actually experienced on your own.  

I mean, after all, are these really my words, or is it just the eleven point arial talking?