In the past decade, smartphones have emerged as an entirely new socialization tool. What started as a new form of conversation in text messages has turned into a multifaceted, elaborate platform that works through social media, new apps like Snapchat and, of course, instant messaging. Now, you can favorite a friend’s recent tweet, send a Snapchat picture, text a GroupMe and even post a “yak” about something, all in the span of 30 seconds.

As you hear constantly from phone companies, having a smartphone means having the world at your fingertips. We’ve been conditioned to believe that we need the accessibility and functionality of an Android or iOS, but is that the full reality here? What about all of the people you see who are constantly glued to their phones? I believe that there’s a point where the smartphone transforms from a powerful tool into a potentially dangerous social crutch.

I was able to hold off from getting a smartphone until the beginning of my senior year of high school. While my friends obsessed over buying the new iPhone, I stuck to a classic Verizon prepaid phone. Throughout high school, my phone was always sort of there, but I wasn’t on it constantly. When you can only send text messages to people, you get bored very quickly. However, when my parents bought me an iPhone for my 18th birthday, my phone quickly became a major part of my daily routine.

Soon after buying my iPhone 6, I visited another private university as a prospective student. I spent a lot of the day waiting for my guide to be done with activities, and when we did have time to socialize, I constantly felt awkward and out of place. In that 24-hour span, I must have spent more time on my phone than I spent on my old phone in a typical week. When I felt like I wasn’t in the crowd, I found it easy to simply take out my phone and pretend to have a purpose. Having my eyes glued to a screen at least seemed to give the illusion of a buzzing social life, however untrue that was at the moment.

In the following weeks, I became more aware that I used the smartphone as a social crutch, and I realized just how many of my friends did the same thing on a daily basis. The smartphone is turning into a substitute for a lack of an enjoyable social life. The second that people begin to feel at all uncomfortable or awkward, they reach for their phones and distract themselves.

In fact, I have found that the practice can become subconscious. There are periods of time when I will check my phone incessantly, constantly pressing the power button, sometimes not even to check for notifications. Like many of my friends, I have habituated myself to constantly checking my smartphone, which can be very detrimental in a social setting. There is no doubt that it is a rude practice to avoid the naturally uncomfortable moments in social situations. If you can’t learn how to get past those moments, will you ever be able to get past that awkward silence when it actually matters?

Social media etiquette, as practiced through the usage of smartphones, has gained attention in the national media as an emerging epidemic. What we have here is a practice that is being ignored by the masses and continuing to pervade our daily lives. While the publicity is certainly important, we need a more concerted effort to take the smartphones out of social settings. It might be as simple as trying to power your phone off during dinner with friends or turning off notifications. But that’s a minimal step–one that is, in reality, hard to pull off.

As individuals, the best step we can take is to engender a stigma against the smartphone in certain settings. Call out your friends when they use their phones in social situations. Be willing to make others uncomfortable by making them recognize the consequence of their actions, and be OK with the occasional awkward silence.