How to determine if you are infected with this modern plague: are you running out of battery too quickly on your phone? Do your eyes ache? Do you have symptoms of early onset arthritis in your thumbs? Did you buy a Mophie or additional charger just to guarantee your phone/tablet doesn't die?

If you answered yes to more than two of the above questions, you could be infected. The cure? Put the phone down, it's not going anywhere.

Welcome to the digital age. Young adults, teens and kids (even toddlers!) are consumed by their portable screens rather than taking in what’s around them, or better yet who’s in front of them. Face to face interaction is shifting from an in person action to something that happens over the phone through the camera lens.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? No, seriously?

Why do we let this continue when we know there is nothing good to come from us being obsessed with our phones?

It's no wonder some find it difficult to interact, in person, with another human when their social skills are not properly developed. Personal interaction is crucial for social beings like us.

Thank you social media apps for contorting our necks, enforcing bad posture and probably causing accidents (vehicular or walking). Although the apps keep us occupied and in contact with people we might not otherwise be connected with, they don’t appear to be that helpful in the long run.

I feel like I should praise the good aspects of social media now. So, I like that you can interact with people from everywhere, look at amazing pictures of food (I do this on the regular, it's my favorite aspect), and "research" new destinations, as well as the sheer power it has over us all and . the ability it gives us to learn how people like to portray themselves on the internet as opposed to how they are in real life.

So put down the phone and venture into reality. Talk to people, make eye contact, smile at a stranger, spend your time doing something beneficial instead of wasting away on an app that doesn't define you. Maybe pick up a book, read the newspaper, converse and engage in society. Don’t be that person that almost runs into someone because they're head down nose-to-screen.

Personal vent session beginning in 3…2…1.

I hate when I’m bored that my first instinct is to check Snapchat or Instagram. That irks me. Watching people sitting together but absorbed in their phones drives me absolutely bonkers. I know your Instagram feed has not updated that much in the past three minutes since you last checked it! I want to see people socializing and engaging with what’s going on in the world. We should be LIVING our lives and not distracting ourselves with the false realities of social media.