About 20 years ago our daughter came home from school and introduced us to her friend and told us that this friend also sits with her family and eats dinner together. At the time, this was an unusual occurrence for many young people, and this was before smartphones! Now, even those families who may gather together for dinner aren’t fully present for each other because they’re checking their smart phones, worrying about missing out on some new text or Facebook post, Twitter post, or email. To just be with each other is becoming more and more rare. If someone is sitting across from you and is expressing an emotion that should be paid attention to, you may not notice because your eyes are looking down at a smart phone.

Sherry Turkle is an ethnographer and the director of the M.I.T. Initiative on Technology and Self. She has been speaking out about how addiction to our smartphones reinforces our fear of being in silence and our fear of being bored. There is a constant craving for stimulation provided by media on your smartphone. We forget how to just sit in silence or to speak eye-to-eye with the person across from us.

I will confess that I am not immune from this smartphone trend. I am trying to put the phone away when I’m with people, but I feel the pull of it. I don’t want to miss out. What if someone is writing to me? I know it can wait but I want to respond right away. This is a bad habit! Recently I bought a new phone. I clicked on a link that activated my new one but there was a software glitch. The panic I felt was all out of proportion to the situation. I became obsessed. I had no smartphone. I stopped everything else I was doing and spent hours on the phone with the phone company and then the manufacturer of the phone. I experienced this phone as an extension of my body. It was as though a part of my body was not working and had to be fixed immediately. I knew I was out of control but I kept on pushing through until I had my phone working. I know from my own experience that smartphone attachment and addiction is real and powerful.

What is my solution? I am trying to disconnect once a week on Shabbat. From sundown Friday night until Saturday evening I’m trying to stay disconnected. One way to do this is to put an “away” message on your email and perhaps post “Shabbat Shalom” on Twitter and Facebook. That’s a start. What do you do to temper your smartphone addiction?