Remembering life before cell phones is hard.

How we ever found out what was going on without text messages or voicemail is beyond me.

Cell phones are definitely a great technological advancement, but, I think, like Americans do with many other things, we are using them way too much.

A walk to class or a drive home cannot occur without seeing people on their phones. We have them in our hands or next to our ears all of the time, and we can’t leave for class without them in our bags.

I must admit I often talk on my cell phone while walking home or to work, too. Although most of the time I am on the phone because I’m walking home when it’s dark and I feel safer when I’m talking to someone, I’m not justifying the action.

I think Generation Y has developed a dependence on its phones, computers and MP3 players, and we are not in tune with ourselves or our peers. We don’t take that free time between classes, after work or on the drive home for ourselves but instead we fill it with the airwaves of pop culture and gossip from our friends.

Saying hello to someone as we pass on the sidewalk hardly ever occurs anymore. Most of the time, people are too busy in their own worlds to realize there’s an entire world of other people around them too.

A friend told me a story the other day about two guys she saw. They were talking as they walked side by side, but they each still had one of the earphones of their MP3 players in their ears.

Don’t worry though, the ears that had the earphone in them were on each of their outsides, so they could still listen to what each other were saying.

If I were walking with one of my friends and he or she didn’t take her headphones completely out to talk to me, I would feel like he or she really didn’t want to be talking to me.

But that is what happens today. Too many of us are caught up in ourselves to take the time to listen to someone else or say, hi, to those few people we see everyday on our way to classes.

And I don’t think it’s because we don’t like the people we’re walking with or we are trying to be rude. I think it’s because that’s just the thing to do now, and we feel the need to join in.

When I see people talking on their phones on the way to class, I suddenly feel like I need to call a friend from home to catch up really quick. I know it’s weird, but it honestly happens. I see everyone else doing it, I have a little extra free time, so why not?

We aren’t “cool” unless we’re on our cell phones or wearing headphones during our short trips between classes, and our beloved gadget companies are thriving off this fad.

The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday that Firefly Mobile has just announced the sale of its new phone specifically made for preteens. These are 9-and 10-year-olds we’re talking about here. The company is hoping to sway parents into believing they should buy the phones for their children for safety reasons. Safety is one reason to buy a cell phone, and following a fad is another.

So, before the commercials start hitting the airwaves and persuading our younger sisters and brothers into believing they have to have a cell phone, we need to take on the responsibility to teach these kids that the social skills we learn through peer-to-peer interaction is much more important than the number of missed calls and text messages they’ll have on their new phones.