"Hi, you've reached Caitlin. I could answer my phone right now, but I would really like to be left alone for five minutes. Leave your name, number and message after the beep and I'll call you back as soon as I'm done procrastinating. If you call back, I'll probably ignore your call again. Then, I'll make up an excuse about my phone getting flushed down a toilet, stolen by a pickpocket or run over by a CATA bus. Thanks and have a nice day!"

If honesty was valued a little more and politeness was valued a little less, I have a feeling almost all of our voicemail messages would go a little something like this. However, with our own insatiable desire to stay connected and with other people expecting us to be accessible 24/7, most of us find our phones glued to our palms and ears, whether we like it or not.

According to USA Today, 230 million Americans who subscribe to a cell phone service say they never leave home without their phone. Even though I'm usually among this number, I have to admit it's a little pathetic to be so utterly dependent on "indispensable" cell phones for daily survival when in the not-so-distant past none of us even had them. A Pew Research Poll found that those aged 18 to 29 are most likely to use their cell phones also as computers, music players, games, cameras, notepads, personal GPS, calendars, alarms and clocks. This forces us to check our phones constantly and feel lost if we don't.

I realize that cell phones do come in handy for staying in touch with family and friends, doing business, making appointments and ensuring personal safety in emergencies. Still, I sometimes wonder if cell phones are really a positive influence in our lives on the whole. Scientists have reported negative effects of cell phone waves on the brain, heart, endocrine system, DNA and male reproductive system, according to USA Today.

And of course, we know that many car accidents are related to texting or talking while driving. Researchers at the University of Utah have found that drivers on cell phones, even those using hands-free devices, travel 2 mph slower than others on average and do not keep up with the flow of traffic. While this might not sound like much, the researchers said it can add 20 hours to a person's commute time each year if that person commutes for about one hour daily.

And cell phone users can be annoying, too. From day to day, it takes little more than a ride on the White Loop to hear someone's ridiculously inappropriate private conversation blabbed shamelessly via cell phone in a public place. Then again, I'd prefer that to the people on my dorm floor last year who talked on the phone while inside the bathroom stalls. It's also pretty common to see Mr. or Miss Too Important totally preoccupied with texting throughout class, or gossiping over the phone while half ignoring the cashier attempting to check them out at McLanahans.

People are forgetting how to communicate in face-to-face interactions and pay attention to those right in front of them; we're forgetting how to do one thing at a time with total focus. Scariest of all, at the rare times when we aren't multi-tasking at a frantic pace, it's apparent that we are becoming people who don't know how to just do nothing -- and enjoy it. There's always a voicemail to check or a call to fret about missing.

So, I am disconnecting. I am protesting being on call non-stop. For the next week, my cell phone will be completely switched off. I hope my friends will read this and know that I haven't died. In my next column, I'll fill you in on just how indispensable found this tiny pink gadget has become in my life.

Now all I need is an alarm-iPod-watch-camera-calculator with GPS to get me through the week.