When did I become do dependant?!?

I recall a time when 80% of my friends had cell phones and I was making a decision to stay “off the grid” for as long as I could. I also made a similar stand on facebook, joining far after my peers. I now am a member of pretty much all of these social media outlets (although I claim some of it is for work, you can’t be in marketing and not know about social media), would be lost without my cell phone, need to check my email if I have been away from a computer for more than a couple of hours and don’t go anywhere without my iPod. How did this happen?

I am debating a bit of a hiatus from a couple of electronic “necessities” for a while... more to see if I can do it. I did it in Australia, more because I was travelling too much to stay on top of it and once my laptop was stolen it was pretty inconvenient to keep up my apparent addiction. The longest I have gone without checking my email would probably be a couple of years ago when I was on a cruise... Why am I so addicted? Do I feel like I will be out of the loop? Worried I won’t know important information? Do I have too much time on my hands? The thing is the longer I am away from home or the people I have met in my travels the more I depend on facebook... it’s an uncomfortable cycle.

This train of thought started from reading an article on University professors assigning for students to give up social networking sites and electronics that didn’t exist in 1984 (not sure why this year was selected). Needless to say... I would fail ...