What is the first thing that you do when you wake up? Do you scroll through Facebook on your phone or check Twitter? How much time do you spend on your phone?

The average person spends 90 minutes a day on their phone, which amounts to 23 days a year, according to mobilestatistics.com. Are we addicted to the devices that we spend 23 days a year on?

“If you can’t ever leave it alone, then you probably should,” said Kathryn Potoczak, a professor of psychology at Shippensburg University.

With the rise of mobile games and smart phone users, the average amount of time spent on mobile devices has increased. Candy Crush is an example of a game that showed the amount of players it had, with the amount of people on social media being invited to play it. That particular player will then advance in the game. People have been blocked on social media because they were spamming other users to play Candy Crush.

Potoczak said she has noticed a change in the classroom where fewer students are prone to talk to others sitting next to them because they have enough friends. Potoczak said she believes that students feel this way because all of their friends are accessible at their fingertips.

The use of cell phones is so prevalent that the U.S. government has had to create laws making texting and driving illegal in most states.

The attention span of the average person has gone down to eight seconds, according to naturalsociety.com based off of a study from Microsoft. A goldfish has an attention span of nine seconds, so humans now have a lower attention span than a goldfish.

People who use their cell phones constantly are used to receiving new and different stimuli at such a high volume that their attention span is being affected. The study from Microsoft found that 77 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds reach for their cell phones when they are bored, 52 percent check their phone every 30 minutes or less and 79 percent use their phone while they are watching television, according to naturalsociety.com.

Potoczak gave the scenario of a person being at a party and insulting the host on social media and no one really doing anything about it. But if that person was to insult the host in person, than more people would speak up because they are insulting the host at his or her house.

Smart phone applications like Twitter, Yik Yak and Facebook are popular apps that allow people to share their thoughts and opinions.

“I think we’re losing our ability to filter,” Potoczack said, referring to why social media use can be dangerous. “Every random thought in our head should be out in public for someone else to read.”

“Too much of anything is too much,” Potoczak said. She said that everyone who might be struggling with cell phone addiction should enjoy a day without it.

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