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News! Big news! Let me be the first to tell you. Your phone has an off switch! To see exactly how much of a phone addict you are, turn off your phone right now before you read the rest of this article. You probably just checked your phone. Go on, you addict, shut off your phone, now! And that includes tablets. Yes, tablets too. Go do it. I'll wait. How long do you think you can go without it? Like any addiction, phone addiction requires constant fixes. Gotta get your fix. Gotta check your phone. Gotta feed that demon. But stop. Think about the demon. The demon makes you think that if you don't look at your phone 200 times a day you're going to miss something. What's so important that it can't wait? You're not an emergency room doctor! Ask yourself this, what did I get from my phone yesterday that couldn't wait until today? We're making ourselves crazy with these phones. Herds of people staring at their phones stampede through traffic following some digital rabbit without regard to anyone or anything. The news tells us that automobile fatalities have risen dramatically in the last two years because of people on their phones texting or looking at videos of too cute and adorable doggies and babies that are so sweet you could go into diabetic shock, which may, in the end, explain the rise in collisions. The phone is a constant interruption. If you answer it, the caller who most likely is a telemarketer, real or robo, will start a conversation with you with complete disregard for what you're doing or saying or where you are, forcing you to be rude and just hang up in their face. It's like someone constantly tapping you on the shoulder saying, "hey, listen to me" or "hey, read this" or "hey, look at this." With 99 percent certainty, the interruption is of no immediate importance to you. It can wait. Let them leave a message. Some of them can wait for an eternity. Remember, you're not an Emergency Room doctor who's on-call in the midst of a natural disaster. Oh, I have to go now. I just got a text. 4 SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | AUGUST 2017