by Robert Barden

Created on: February 27, 2009

America has a new monkey on its back. Only this monkey doesn't come from the poppy fields of Afghanistan or the coca plants of Columbia. America's latest crutch is as close as your nearest electronics store, comes in a myriad of colors, shapes, sizes and features; and goes by the name of cell phone.

A few months ago, my wife and I were having dinner at a downtown restaurant. We were seated next to a young family of four. It was refreshing to see a family enjoying some time together. Until that all-too-familiar sound of a wireless monkey intruded on their family outing like an unwelcome guest.

The mother reached into her purse, and instead of silencing the intruder, answered the call. My wife and I became unwilling eavesdroppers on her conversation, which from what we heard, was trivial at best. Meanwhile, her family finished their dinner in silence; as she was still on the phone when the waitress came with their check.

We were nearly speechless. "Do you believe that?", my wife asked in amazement. "Look around.", I replied as I did a quick pan of the restaurant and saw three other tables with people engaged in cell phone conversations. There was a middle-aged couple at one table, both of them on their phones. "What are the chances they're talking to each other?" I quipped to my wife.

The restaurant experience left me with the question of whether or not some people really are addicted to their cell phones? A Google search of the phrase "cell phone addiction" returned 16,900 hits. There's an abundance of surveys, polls, and articles from sources such as ABC News, CNN, USA Today, and Fox News, to name a few.

The current statistics are astounding. There are 212 million cell phone subscribers in the United States, and 2.2 billion cell phones worldwide. Many countries have more wireless monkeys than people (UK, Hong Kong, and India to name a few). How does this happen, do people develop a tolerance of some kind? Many companies offer "buy one get one free" deals on their phones, which may be a precursor to one day swinging by Best Buy to pick up a six-pack of phones on the way home from work.

In a 2005 survey by BBDO Worldwide, an advertising agency, 15 percent of the respondents said they have interrupted sex to answer a cell phone. A recent ABC News survey reported that 7 percent of the respondents blame the cell phone for a lost relationship or job (possibly a connection to the BBDO survey?)

The cell phone has allowed us to stay connected in more locations than ever before (as close as the nearest restroom, or as remote as the grand canyon). While it's true we are more connected to the world, have we forfeited our connections to the people in our lives that we choose to spend our time with?

Perhaps someday we'll have a 12-step program for recovering from cell phone addiction, which would include steps like "mastering the use of voicemail", or "recognizing inappropriate times and/or places". A good first step would be to just hang up the phone and share our time and attention with the people around us, or as the seventies rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young put it, "Love the One You're With".

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