“What’s your number?” You probably hear that everyday. Or every other day. Or every other year ¹. Online, offline, and in the dreams, someone somewhere is probably asking someone or something his/her/its cell phone number every second. Cell phone is like a necessity for many people today. You carry a small electronic device with you on which you can get calls from or make calls to anyone in this world who has a phone or something similar. You use it for many things like calling someone, setting up alarms, texting people, browsing the internet, listening to music, taking pictures, working on documents, looking at it while holding it with both hands to pretend you are busy, and more. Today, I would like to focus on your overall interest level in your cell phone. I will share with you some of the strange habits or trends that can signify your obsessions with your cell phone.

Cell phones are so common today that simply talking about them in terms of being a technology that is harmful to depend on raises not only a lot of heads but also creates a lot of confusion in people: “Why would a cell phone be harmful?” Using a cell phone has caused a lot of people to change their habits in strange ways, and many of such strange ways are so strange that they must be strange for strangeness itself in many cases. A few years ago I told you about webcam obsessions. Webcams have become so common that almost majority of all the new laptops today come with one built in. Today, let us dive into the concept of cell phone obsession, since cell phones are almost on the verge of becoming so common that anyone without a cell phone may find themselves being pointed out in public in the near future.

Top 43 signs you are obsessed with your cell phone

The following 43 points² can all be normal in their own individual and grouped sense. Some points may sound strange. Some points may sound normal. Sound points may create other feelings and emotions and similar or unrelated things. You have to figure out on your own whether or not you are obsessed with your cell phone.

1. Your cell phone has a name.
2. Your cell phone goes with you everywhere.
   Whether you go to the garage, the backyard, the farm, the kitchen, the bathroom or the closet, you always carry your cell phone with you. You can look at your cell phone while you do anything, and someone may call you during that time.
3. You clothe your cell phone.
   They are NOT covers. They are clothes. You buy clothes for your cell phone. And your cell phone needs new clothes everyday. Sometimes your cell phone changes clothes more than once a day.
4. You bathe your cell phone.
   Your cell phone gets showers. Humans get showers, or are supposed to. Why not cell phones? Who cares what other cell phone abusers do. You will give a good bath to different parts of your cell phone to ensure it is always clean. The main phone part that cannot get wet and the battery get cleaned with baby wipes.
5. You do not discuss the problems you have with your phone with anyone else.
6. You never forget to take your cell phone with you everywhere.
   You can forget your money at home or can forget to take a shower for weeks, but you never forget to have your cell phone with you when you leave the house.
7. Cell phone comforts you after a good or a bad dream.
   When you wake up in the middle of the night after a bad dream, or a good one, the first thing you do is to find your cell phone. You press a key on your cell phone to turn on its display and use that display light to check if there is anything else in the room with you. The light switch is too far to head for in that dark and after that dream.
8. Phone health is the most important priority for you.
   It is all right to run out of money. It is all right to run out of gas. It is all right to run out of food. It is NOT all right to run out of cell phone reception. It is NOT all right to have the battery go below 50% charge level. You will let your phone charge first before going to the hospital in an emergency.
9. Lending your cell phone to someone is like lending your spouse or children to someone.
   It simply does not happen, or when it does, paranoia kicks in. After your cell phone is reunited with you, you engage in a shower ritual.
10. You only hang around people who have the same or similar kind of a phone.
    Not only do you not become close friends with people who do not have a cell phone from the same company as yours, you also do not mingle with people who have more than one cell phone and one of those cell phones is not of the same company. To ensure that no one discriminates or acts racist against your cell phone, you only hang around people who have the same or similar kind of phone.
11. If you get robbed and lose everything except your cell phone, life still has hope for you.
12. The only thing you hate on your phone, theoretically and philosophically, is the off switch.
    You cannot remember the last time you used it other than when the cell phone was being washed.
13. You feel uncomfortable knowing that there is a regular landline phone in your house.
14. Your cell phone ringtone library is your actual full-length music collection.
15. Your music collection is your cell phone ringtone library.
16. You argue with other people the way you argue with your cell phone.
    “Put yourself on silent!” and “Your brain does not have the capacity to get any signal. Otherwise you would be getting my message right now!” are some of your rudest lines in an argument.
17. You leave your phone on silent in places where you are told to turn off your phone.
    Your phone wants to experience the planes and movie theatres even when it has no signal or is not ringing.
18. You can go to sleep without water in scorching heat or a blanket in the snowing fields, but you cannot go to sleep without knowing where your cell phone is.
    Is it on the table or is it next to your head?
19. The first thing you do when you wake up is to touch your phone.
    It does not have to be turned on, and you do not need to see how many missed calls or messages, if any, you have. You just touch the phone and move it from where you were sleeping to where you think you will spend the next 2 minutes at.
20. You start feeling bad that you got a mail-in-rebate for your cell phone.
    To you, that is the same as getting paid by someone to go out on the first 100 dates and outings with the person you end up getting married to, without that person ever finding out. It is your secret. It is our secret now.
21. To show someone love, you give them a good cell phone. To show someone hate, you give them a badly scratched phone.
    The badly scratched phone must be a brand new good one that you buy and abuse in order to give to your sworn enemy. Your enemies and ex’s always wonder why you gave them so many phones near the end of your happy times with them.
22. In order to get close to people, you find out about their taste in cell phones.
23. People should hang out with you knowing you are hanging out with your cell phone.
    When people hang out with you, they should realize that they are hanging out with you and your cell phone and that both you and your cell phones should be treated as humans who love touching and talking to each other in public and everywhere.
24. You would rather call or text someone sitting in the next room than to raise your voice to talk to them or walk over.
25. Instead of moving your eyes towards the lower or top right corner of your computer to check the time, you reach for your cell phone while you are using the computer to see what time it reports.
    There is nothing like the time shown on your cell phone compared to the time shown on your laptop. My phone says it is 6:37pm, and my laptop also says it is 6:37pm.
26. “Cell phones………”, reading that makes you feel very happy.
27. You do not recycle or throw away your previous cell phones.
    You keep your cell phones in a cabinet labeled “Ex’s” and your new cell phone never, ever, gets in or around that cabinet.
28. Who needs a camera when your cell phone has the camera?
    You cannot imagine how people took pictures before cell phones were invented.
29. When going on sites like Match.com, True.com or eHarmony.com, you look for key phrases like “Samsung” and “Motorola.”
30. In your view, people without cell phones are like people without money.
    You simply do not want to be like them, and you may never end up liking them or becoming their friend. You know this from the moment you realize they do not have a cell phone.
31. If you do decide to sell one of your cell phones, you meet the potential new owners to find out more about them.
    Even if they offer to pay more than what you paid and they are giving you cash, you decline their offer if you think they will not take as good care of the phone as you did.
32. Making fun of your phone is off-limits.
    Your friends, family and stranger neighbors simply know now to do it.
33. A movie with the tagline “Someone made fun of his Nokia phone! Now he’s out to kill them!” appears reasonable to you because you can visualize yourself as the main character mentioned in that tagline.
    You do not know why I listed this point.
34. You do not like ay living thing touching or playing around your cell phone.
    Humans or other animals may drool on the cell phone or try to chew it. You are not worried about what will happen when you hurt the animal because it destroyed or put scratches on your phone. You are worried that you may have to replace the phone or that your phone may not be new anymore.
35. You do not remember any numbers in life except the specifications of your cell phone and maybe your cell phone number.
    You do not know your identity number³, and you may not know the ages of your friends and family member. You do not know what your car license plate says, nor do you remember what you had for breakfast yesterday, which is probably the same thing you had today. You do, however, remember the exact model, model number and specifications of your cell phone, cell phone battery and cell phone charger.
36. You are offended by this list.
    You think I am an anti-technology, anti-cell-phone and anti-everything paranoid person who probably had to use a spell checker to write the word “cell phone.”
37. People holding cell phones gives you the same feelings as couples holding hands and cell phones.
    When you see couples holding hands, you wait a while to have them take out their cell phones before judging that your connection with your cell phone is more genuine compared to theirs or that you want to have such connections yourself.
38. When you get kicked out of the house, or kick someone out of the house, you always focus on having your cell phone with you.
    Nothing else matters.
39. To you, the sentence “Life without cell phones is peaceful! Imagine turning off the cell phone for a day or two and living in a more peaceful environment” seems to come from the same poor people who say “Money does not bring you happiness.”
    You know such people and such comments are full of crap.
40. Posts like “Thought: It is illegal to sneeze, talk & blind while driving” get you extremely excited.
    And then you go into a shock realizing I wrote it too.
41. Many perverts take pictures of models and cell phones because those pervert photographers are losers in your view.
    Many photographers cannot get into relationships with beautiful people, and thus they realize the only way they can get close to beautiful people is to buy an expensive camera and take pictures and call it “model shoot” or something similar. For you, cell phones are models. People taking pictures of cell phones remind you of perverts so much that you get upset and do not like anyone taking pictures of cell phones.
42. You get very upset or confused when people put their cell phones in strange places like the floor or on top of dirty clothes.
    You would never do such a thing to your own phone.
43. You have actually thought of stealing someone else’s phone because they do not take good care of it.

So there you have it. Above are some of the top points that may show you your obsession with your cell phone.

Are you obsessed with your cell phone the way you are with other things in life?

You may notice that almost each and every point listed in this cell phone obsessions obsessive list has some kind of a connection to a non-cell-phone-trait or quality. If you can spot that non-cell-phone-related-trait, you can be better equipped or open to figure out whether or not you are obsessed with your cell phone in that manner, and vice versa also. For example, when you hang out with others and your boyfriend or girlfriend, do you ignore everyone around you for the most part, without considering the fact that you may be rude?

Such a quality is not liking or loving your partner in that relationship: it is kind of being obsessed that you still want to fulfill the obligation of hanging out with others, but you end up annoying everyone because you cannot socialize with others due to your obsessions with your boyfriend or girlfriend. We all know how such relationships end⁴.  Are you the same way with your cell phone? If so, figure out the differences in your concept of being with a cell phone and a boy/girlfriend⁵, and you will realize whether or not you are obsessed with one of the two, or both⁶.

What do you think? Are you obsessed with your cell phone? Do you think cell phone obsession is a myth?

What do you think? How many of the above points apply to you? Have you seen or heard of someone else doing something mentioned in the list above? Do you think any specific point or points in the above list are too silly, or too normal? Also, please let me know of any other points you can think of. I am already thinking of a part 2 for this list.

It has been raining here for a few days at random times, so I now have to check on my cell phone to see what kind of weather is happening outside the window in this room. Yep, it is raining.

Thank you for reading.

1. If you never hear such a thing, you now know that some other people ask or get asked for cell phone numbers [↩]
2. At first, I thought of dividing this article into a series of 2 to 4 parts. However, since I am me, this list in one single go is awesome! [↩]
3. Social security number, driver’s license number, government issues id, passport number, or any other form of id number that your government or local area law may have appointed you [↩]
4. Name one such relationship, where the couple always indulge in each other when hanging out with others, making everyone else who is innocent uncomfortable all the time, that has not ended already or is not on its way to the sweet end? [↩]
5. The non-physical part [↩]
6. The phone and the relationship person, and not the boy/girlfriend at the same time, though that latter one is also true for many people [↩]