Lets put work aside, and ask could you go a day, a week, a month without your cell phone?

I have a sister inlaw that gives me shit for playing to much on the computer, but when ever we do meet up, she barely ever talks to us because she is always texting some friend, we spend most of the time talking to her husband.

My boyfriend are fairly long distance so I would struggle for any more than a day without my phone as that is our main form of communication.

@Leanne1986 ok but when you are together could you both just turn it off, or no?

I just did, actually, go a month without it. It was also a month without my home internet access.

During the week, I just did more craft projects. And the weekends were RennFaire. Not a big deal.

Two years ago, I lost my cellphone and it took about ten days before I got a new one. It wasn’t that inconvenient at all. I still had access to email and Facebook on computers at home. It just wasn’t s easy as with a good phone.

I will admit to being somewhat tied to it and checking it when I can. But not when I am with someone or in a conversation.

@Seek_Kolinahr excellent ,I need mine for work but not for my private life.

@SQUEEKY2 I could. He doesn’t as he has children from a previous relationship so he leaves his phone on all the time in case there is a child related emergency.

I’ve done it when I traveled abroad but I still try to find internet somewhere. I admit I’m addicted to being “plugged in.”

I have a landline phone at home and I do most of my communicating via email, so I could conceivably go years without using a cell phone.

I frequently do.

I can go years without one.

I like to have my mobile phone on all the time because I have a young adult son, and my fiance and I work over 90 miles away from one-another. If he’s upstairs and I’m in the laundry room with the machines running, he’ll send me a text rather than shouting that dinner is ready, for example. I use it as my primary device for email and we do not have a land-line; texting is my preferred mode of communication.

When we are together at home, we do often have our devices on – whether phones, tablets or laptops – and we discuss what we’re seeing. We watch little-to-no television (except some sports and Cosmos), so surfing the web and socializing on-line are our entertainment, instead of the boob-tube.

When we’re eating or watching movies we put our phones on silent and in our pockets or face down on the table – we enjoy them and rely on them, but I wouldn’t say that we’re addicted to them.

I often go months without using mine, since it is only a hedge against emergencies. There is terrible cell service in my area and in order to get a signal at home, I usually have to stand on the roof of my car. Half the time I forget to charge it or can’t find it.

I have a pre-paid cell phone that I only use for emergencies and/or to call when I’m heading home from somewhere at night. So I rarely use it. And it’s not smart, no camera, no texting, no surfing.

Yes, of course. I can if need be.

I rarely use my cell phone. I don’t know why I even pay for the thing every month. I always thought it was very rude when people look and play with their cell phone when around other people. Each his own I guess.

I do not have a land line phone. My cell phone is my only phone. It is a necessity.

For the record, I do not play games on my phone. I do not play any computer games at all. I’m an oddity.

I use my phone to talk to people, to trade text messages with people, to check email when I’m away from my computer, and to very rarely check something on the Internet.

I am not “addicted” to my phone in any way. It is an important tool that I use.

I use laptop mostly for computer stuff at home and work computer for work and internet at work. I am not one to carry on phone conversations when I am out – to me, there’s a home phone for that. Sure, I could live without cell phone if I had to. It’s a convenience when meeting friends or running late or whatever, or looking up movie times and stuff like that, but would I drop dead or have a nervous breakdown without it? I don’t think so.

@jca ok then here is a test only for today turn it off put it on the shelf and try not to touch it for the rest of the day,can you do that are you willing to try?

@SQUEEKY2: No problem – it’s dead anyway and I don’t have time to charge it. I hadn’t looked at it since I left work Friday. Friday, someone said to me “did you see my text yesterday?” and I told her I hadn’t looked at it since Thursday afternoon. So for me, it’s definitely not a big deal to not look at it. I will probably charge it tonight so I have it for tomorrow morning. I am serious – friends know they can call me on my home number or email me and I look at my laptop. I am not one of those people with their phone in their hands or by their side constantly. The only time I was, was when I didn’t have a laptop, for about a month. Then the phone was the only way I did computing outside of work.

If you mean a smartphone, I’ve never even owned one.

I had a cell phone, a flip phone, but I lost that last year. Never used it too much. Just got the landline now. The less people can bug me, the better.

I’m one of the few that has never gotten a cell phone. So, a non-issue for me. I would however be lost without my laptop and email. My old house was at the bottom of a canyon, a canyon within a canyon and there was zero reception anyway.

Once in a great while, when my daughter was over , she could get a few bars, if she slowly rotated around the corner of my deck. haha
If she needed to make any calls she had to use my land line.
Other guests, often experienced extreme withdrawal when they realized they were in the twilight zone at my place.

I could, in theory, go without my phone for as much as…ooh, a week or so.
This is because I know a man with pigeons, a week is about their limit.

I don’t have a cell phone. Well not one that’s operational. My wife bought me a cell phone to take to an out of state hospital hospital (in Indianapolis, Indiana) so that I could keep in communication before and after surgery on my heart. Of course that was unnecessary because I was in a private room with a landline phone. We never renewed the contract on my cell phone. Why should we waste money on something that I don’t need, want or use?

O yes I do it at least twice a year when I go camping…hate cell phones with a passion

Apparently there are many people just walking around staring at their phone all day, ignoring the people around them. I believe that it’s happening, but it’s not my experience at all. I don’t know people who play games on their phones, use the phones for voice calls, or sit around using their phone while hanging out with other people.

What I see is a tool. Nothing more. If you are leading a busy life (have kids, a job, and appointments), you can delegate tasks to your phone so that you can be more present and mindful when you are around people. I am able to spend more time with my kids, friends, and family because I use the technology as a tool that does stuff for me.

So, how long could I go without it? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure I would want to. It would mean that I would be carrying around paper planners, a watch, GPS device, a camera, etc. And I would be stuck sitting around waiting rather than out in the woods living. I prefer to be confident that I can let go of all concerns about obligations and appointments and be fully there for my kids. This is possible because my phone knows my appointments and is monitoring traffic so that it will tell me exactly when I need to leave to go somewhere.

So, addiction? Maybe it exists and I don’t see it. Or maybe we’re seeing something new and labeling it an addiction because it’s new and we don’t really get it. I’m reminded on Douglas Adams’ comments….

“1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.”

I could as long as I started wearing a watch and carried a little flashlight. ~75% of my cell usage is checking the time or using the phones flashlight :P

I have very poor vision. Without my cell, I’d be forced to stay next to my husband when we shop; I wouldn’t be able to wander away or split up. I could never find him. I’d be the lost kid in the office they announce. It gives me a sense of freedom.

I could go without it a month. I don’t use my cell phone that much actually. I really like the convenience of texting, but I could go a month. When I am on vacation I barely use my phone or the Internet. I easily go days without utilizing either, except to check if someone called, because they would not know I wasn’t using my phone. I could just change my message on my vmail and not check it for days.

I’d love to go without mine for a month, what a relief that would be! I’m on call 24/7 and have to carry my cell phone everywhere! I can go without it for social reasons but have to have my lap top for other communications!

I’d be happy never to own a cell phone. I think cell phones were part cause of my breakdown. I am happy for them to exist for emergencies. (I also like to take photo’s on it!).

Like @hominid, I use mine as an e-reader (unlike a Nook/Kindle, it fits in my pocket), a GPS (with traffic updates), calculator, camera, and many other things besides communication. I talk for less than 2 hours a month, and the only person I text regularly is my wife for those things where it’s quicker and easier to text a sentence than to go through the whole dialing and waiting to get kicked to voicemail.

Like many, I lack a landline, but I spend most of my waking hours outside of home anyways, making a landline nearly useless. And I use my phone for so many non-communication things that I would be hard-pressed to go without my Razr HD unless I spent a few hundred dollars to get multiple devices to replace it.

Those who are anti-cellphone tend to be that way due to Facebook/Twitter, and an an inability to understand both that a smartphone is far more than just a phone, and that cellphones are there for your convenience, not the convenience of those who may wish to contact you. I chuckle when they get caught up in an accident-induced backup on I-5, whip out a 2,000-page reference book instead of a pocket-sized device, and otherwise suffer from their unwillingness to advance beyond 1980s technology just because they are annoyed by some kid’s addiction to social media.

@El_Cadejo I wear a watch and carry a Streamlight Stylus for daily use, though I favor theStylus Pro for work where I need a bit more oomph.

I don’t use mine a lot. I text mostly, and most of it is stuff like my partner asking me to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work or letting me know if he’s going to be late, and other practical things like that. Since no-one can call me when I’m at work, it’s very useful for that kind of thing. Before cellphones I used to worry myself sick when something happened that would make him a couple of hours late and he didn’t have a way to let me know.

Aside from that it gets used mostly for playing Sudoku on the bus, but a paper book would suffice just as easily.

I hate having to use mine – which is because I’m on call 24/7 for work. I use it for emergencies, but nothing else… I would happily throw it away if not for my job!