cell phone anxiety

I was sitting in my first day of classes today, the first day of being a real life "twue" grad student. It surprised me how quickly I was falling back into community college patterns - trying to stay awake, in particular, when the very first professor was spending a seemingly inordinate amount of time to go over the syllabus. Normally I would have surfed the web, checked out facebook or maybe postsecret. But these class rooms have a booth behind them, for the tech folks to sit and monitor all of the room a/v equipment, or in today's case, for the professor teaching the next class to observe our computer screens for amazon retail therapy.

I tend to feel a bit of anxiety when separated from my phone, from the ability to immediately discern every noise and movement, to monitor each email and text as it arrives (but somehow always seem to miss the calls). I had my phone in my lap today in one class while I took notes, and as I struggled to type fast enough to keep up with the professor's rapid overview of the first chapter, it kept buzzing.

And buzzing.

Texts.

I knew I couldn't look at them, this was a professor who roamed the aisle of the auditorium-style room, and here I was sitting right on the end of the row, in prime viewing area. I accepted the fact that I would not be checking them, didn't feel much of a pressure to find out who was texting or why.

But I did feel anxious. Every time I felt it move, I noticed a catch in my throat, an ache in the pit of my stomach, knowing that I was actively ignoring these people. A social pressure and feeling of obligation to respond to (or at least to read) the message now that I was aware of its existence. How silly is that? Next time, I'll leave my phone in my bag.