Don't sleep with your smart phone nearby

By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor
Tue November 1, 2011

Excerpt:
We have learned to celebrate, even revere, the wireless gadgets we carry around and the inventors who bring them to us; the response to the death of Steve Jobs this month was emblematic of how important our do-it-all phones, our computers, our tablets and related digital devices have become. We say that the technology has changed life as we used to know it.

But how much is too much?

And, more to the point: How many of us have the nagging feeling that we are somehow unable to disconnect -- that the electronic devices we own have begun to own us?...

...So the addiction question is often one that people silently ask themselves. Shouldn't we be spending less time checking and rechecking our many screens, large and small, and more time taking part in what used to be regarded as real life? Is there something inherently wrong when people being separated from their phones, computers and tablets makes them feel nervous, irritable, tense -- in other words, when they begin to exhibit classic withdrawal symptoms?   the rest image