Cellphones can be wants and needs, but teenagers these days are abusing the use of them! https://student.societyforscience.org/a … -addictive This is an article that explains how people can actually become addicted to their phones. College students use their phones about 9 hours on average, probably more than most of them sleep. That's not healthy! Cellphones can be a great way to communicate quickly with your friends and family but most of us could survive without them. People feel anxiety whenever their phones are running out of battery, or they lose their chargers. This can be compared to withdrawal symptoms that drug users have. Phones are awesome, but too much of something is never a good thing.

I agree with you Paula! I definitely think cellphones are a want. This article http://www.cfeministries.org/blog/cell- … -need-them really opens my eyes. Yes, you might want all of your children to have phones to communicate when they are not with you. But, there are cellphones that do not include the data and texting packages. It honestly wastes money.
The world we live in right now revolves around social media. Often times, I try to stretch away and really connect with my surroundings. People did fine communicating before data plans, and they saved more money too! Family plans today can cost around $300, which is a crazy amount! So, try to dial down the texting and interact with the real world rather than "liking" pictures on other's social media pages.

This is a great post Paula!

Cell phones are a want to the younger generation. I'm in my second year of high school and I have never needed a cell phone in my life. I walk around town and I see kids with there own iPad or iPhone5 and think to myself that they do not even need one. Most of the time they just have it for games and nothing else which is just stupid because the parents can just get the kid handheld for video games and it would be way cheaper and not as bad if they brake it. My peers in my generation are addicted to their cell phones and they barley grown up with cell phones, now think how bad the addiction will be to a kid who's been playing with a cell phone since they were 3-5 years old.

I completely agree! I feel that kids in this generation have grown up dependent on technology, and because of that, feel unsafe or abnormal when they aren't clutching a phone! As for me, a junior in high school, I must admit I do use my phone often to communicate with friends, make plans, and stay "connected." But I really do my best to not rely on my phone too heavily. I would hate to be the person constantly texting all the time. I hope that people begin to realize that cell phones are not a necessity!

All of you make valid points. People, specifically teenagers and children, are using their mobile phones and electronics way more than necessary. I did some research on how all of this is affecting the environment and found this article that provides a lot of interesting statistics. http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technol … hones.html. From here, I learned that there are an astounding number of phones in existence- about two for every three people. Combine that with the fact that the average person gets a new phone ever 12 to 18 months, and you are left with a staggering amount of mobile devices. All the charging and Wi-Fi needed, added to the energy needed to produce and demolish new and broken phones, contribute to a high energy level. The habits being formed are going to use more energy rather than cut back. This is going to wear down on our environment unless serious changes are made.

These are all great points! I never realized how much we use our cell-phones for unnecessary purposes. We should tie this back into our carbon emissions, and how cell-phone use affects the environment. It is important to know that our over-use of cell-phones is not only bad for ourselves, but also harms the environment.  http://visual.ly/environmental-impact-cell-phones gives some astounding facts about the large impact these seemingly small pieces of technology have on the environment. For instance, charging every single cell-phone on earth would require the equivalent 584,000 gallons of gas, which would produce 35,000,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. This astounding fact can help us understand how much we affect our communities with our cell-phone use.

Mobile phones are not only a social killer (for instance in pubs, caffes, restaurants) but they kill our planet slowly. Every one of us should restrict the usage of the phones according to the needs. Not to mention lot of us leave the phone to charge over night, that's a very bad habit because it uses so much more energy than the charging itself.

I agree with you, maybe we spend too much time on our cellphone, even we don't realise how much time did we spend on it. But nowadays, we can not live without our cellphone. Cellphone is not only a communicate tool but also a tool for the business. It effect economic of our society. Maybe there is one of the reasons why people spend so much time on their cellphone.

i know that i make this mistake quite a bit myself, but we need to unplug our devices! So many of my friends charge their phones overnight until they are far beyond fully charged. Not only does this usually weaken the battery life of whatever device you are using but it also wastes immense amounts of energy. By keeping in any wall charger plugged in, you are still taking in as much energy would be needed if a device were charging from it. We need to unplug.

I agree! I know I am guilty of using my cell phone way too often. Students should try to limit their cellphone usage because it gets in the way of real life social interactions and they are a big distraction. Also, when we use our cell phones too much it lowers the battery and it makes us want to charge it. We can save energy by not using our cell phones as much so we don't have to charge them as frequently. Another common mistake made when charging mobile devices is leaving the cord plugged into the wall without the phone attached to it. The cord still draws out energy, even though it's a fraction of the amount of energy used when actually charging the device, but that's energy that can be saved.

These are some great points! Just reading this article makes me want to cut down on my phone use, and it's good for the environment! I understand why our phones give us so much stress, apart from battery percentages being low some messages that we read on social media get us addicted to drama. This helps us use more energy that is even worse for the environment!

This makes a good point. I know I am addicted to my phone. This article has really made me reconsider my phone use. They can be great for getting in touch, but I can see how if they are abused how they can harm the environment. This article makes some great points that unveil the reality of obsessive and or compulsive phone usuage.

Paula you make a really good point that cell phones are something that can be great for communicating with those around us, but when left unchecked people too often become addicted to their phones. I believer there are both good and bad aspects to technology, and that it can have huge benefits in moderation, but when people begin to become obsessed with their lives on their phones, then it becomes very unhealthy. I know at least for me that I have created the habit of looking at my phone before I go to bed for at least twenty minutes. This article here explains that even small habits like mine can have a serious impact on your body and health. http://www.businessinsider.com/smartpho … eep-2015-2

What is interesting about the concept of cell phone "addiction" is that it is so integrally tied to social habits. As the article that Paula posted stated, bahaviors can be addicting, but the reason that I think cell phone use is a unique problem is because it is associated with our social groups. Thus, being without our technology often leaves us feeling cut out or out of the loop, a form of social anxiety that is often not present in other behavioral addictions. I think that the social aspect is also what pushes people to want a newer, faster version of a smart phone, ipod, etc - even thought they made not need it. In terms of sustainability, this is a dangerous trend because issues that become socially ingrained are harder to remove.

I think cel phone is a helpful tool but everything in excess is bad, do it worth spend the time you can enjoy with your family in the cel phone.  We should make a respondible use of it, also when we loose our chargers we are increasing our foot print because we didn´t care about when it was lost.

I definitely know how you can get addicted to your cell phone because I know I am addicted to my phone. Although sometimes I wish I lived in a period where there were no cell phones so people would be more social and communicate more. This article opened my eyes to how much I use my cell phone. I did not realize just how harmful cell phones hurt the environment. I am definitely going to try to cut back.