By Pattie Mihalik

newsgirl@comcast.netWhen we were kids, there was a chant we sang as we ran away in a game of tag."You can't get me, you can't get me," we taunted.Change that to "you won't get me," and you'll have my reaction to every kind of addiction.Except for the fact that I'm a foodie who loves good food, addiction has never grabbed me. Or, so I thought.A little incident with my computer and cellphone told a different story.Out of the blue, I started getting computer messages warning I had visited an infected site where my computer was hit with a virus.Since my computer was still working, except for those annoying messages, I thought it was just part of that phony scam con artists are using to hijack money out of us.So I tried to ignore it.It didn't take long for my computer to try to prove to me it really was infected. Every Internet site kept disappearing.Then a message appeared telling me I had to buy a virus protection program to make the glitch go away. I could click all I wanted. The message would not go away.I had to give up and take the computer to a fix-it shop. He was pretty busy but said I could leave my computer there and he would get to it as soon as he could.Then my cellphone went into collusion with the troubled computer. My smartphone stopped working. It joined my computer waiting at the technology fix-it shop.Since my columns were in for the week, I thought I could do without the computer and cellphone for a while. But it felt like a vital part of me was missing.I kept going to my empty desk to check my email, forgetting my computer and cellphone were in the shop.It felt like being left on a deserted island with no one around.When I tried to drive somewhere, I felt unsafe not having my cellphone with me. What if something happened and I needed help?I had a lot of "what ifs" running through my mind as I tried to come to grips with being without technology.I finally had to admit I'm addicted to the Internet and to my cellphone. Like millions of others, I don't know how we ever did without them.If you think you're not addicted to the Internet and your cellphone, try doing without them for a week.Coincidentally, just as I was pondering how addicted we have become to those gadgets, I listened to a radio show about that very topic."Of course we're addicted," said the Google expert on the show. "We're addicted to getting any information we want within seconds."While that isn't bad in and of itself, it does have the debilitating effect of turning us into a society that demands instant everything," he said.We no longer can tolerate reading through reams of material to find what we want. We want the information at our fingertips within seconds. I do find since the invention of Google-type information sites, I constantly rely on them.If I'm writing a story about something that needs clarification in my mind, I check it out on the Internet.If my doctor prescribes a new medication or sends me for a test, I use Google to find pertinent details.My husband and I have the nice habit of always eating dinner together. It's a time when we share information and just enjoy talking with each other.But at least several times a week he jumps up from the table in the middle of our conversation to Google for more information.When we are out to dinner with friends, they sometimes whip out their cellphones for information about something we were discussing.Experts are right when they say carrying on conversation has become a lost art.Plus, many of us have become seriously addicted to our smartphones without knowing it.According to statistics I just read (after Googling the topic, of course,) the average person checks his cellphone 110 times a day. Many check it much more than that, even if they have no real reason.Two statistics that surprised me have to do with the surging addiction to texting.According to those statistics, adolescents and teens often don't get enough sleep because the most active time for teen texting is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. - and many are texting all that time.I know some parents who have to collect their kids' cellphones when it's time for bed because of that.Here's one statistic I can't fathom. The average teen spends 11 or more hours a day texting or on social media sites.If you don't believe we're addicted to our cellphones, look around you.On the street, in pretty parks and in restaurants, people are paying attention only to their cellphones.In my neighborhood last week, several residents were standing in a driveway admiring a pair of sandhill cranes.Suddenly, a car veered onto the grass, killing one of the beautiful birds and barely missing the neighbors.The driver said she didn't see them because she was "checking her email."I'd call that an addiction - an addiction that's bigger and sneakier than we think.Contact Pattie Mihalik at

newsgirl@comcast.net.