I went to dinner with my family the other day and was excited to talk with my mother about the coming school semester. There’s a little Mexican restaurant in my hometown, and I was really craving enchiladas, so I thought it would be the perfect meal.

We walked in, sat down, and ordered our drinks. Being the last to order, I looked over to my mother and sister to strike up a conversation, only to find them busily typing away at their cell phones.

This isn’t a sight that is uncommon to me. Both of those girls are technology-addicts, and I myself am guilty of the same vice.

Unfortunately, we aren’t the only American family that can’t take our eyes away from those little handheld screens. With technology so rapidly being improved and updated and revised, it has become increasingly easy to manage your entire life from the palm of your hand. That doesn’t sound so bad though, right? I mean, why would you carry around a billion planners and handheld games and a computer when you can do it all from one small cell phone, right? I agree. My smart phone has made my life extremely more manageable, but what it and it’s fellow phones are doing to the art of conversation is truly saddening.

The worst culprit? The text message.

Carl Jenquin, a blogger, writes that “Sending a text message, or texting, with your mobile phone was first completed in 1989. In 1995, only about one message was sent by customers per month. The average increased to around 35 in 2000, and has continued to increase at an alarming rate.”

As I walk down the South Oval at our fine university, it’s rare that I see someone without a cell phone. There was a point in time, before the invention of cell phones (hard to believe that time existed, I know), that people would walk along the street and have conversations with one another. There was a time when families would go out to eat and talk with each other and the people around them. There was a time when everyone would talk face-to-face.

That time is over. It’s much easier to pull out your phone and text a friend, co-worker, family member or partner than it is to go see them in person. This way of communication is in no way healthy. It has become so bad that people will even text each other from the other side of a table.

Because of this, real life conversations have become dull and uninteresting. There’s nothing to talk about with a girlfriend, boyfriend, or best friend when you have been texting them non-stop since you last saw them. This has made it impossible to make real life connections with people.

Here’s an example: I have this close friend, let’s call him Jack. Jack and I have been best friends since I moved to Bristow the summer before my seventh grade year. We would hang out everyday and have loads to talk about. Now Jack goes to a different school, and I of course go to OU. Jack and I still text and keep each other updated, so much to the point that when we see each other, barely anything is said. The friendship that “Jack” and I once shared is totally ruined because we can’t even hold a real world conversation together.

Another example is my friend Sarah. Sarah is one of the sweetest girls I know, and she is a texting fiend. She got her first cell phone when she was 12, and has texted at unbelievable speeds since then. Now, Sarah is socially awkward and doesn’t know how to talk to anyone, even managers or professors. She grew up having conversations with a small plastic slab, and now she doesn’t know how to talk to people.

Kids are getting phones at younger and younger ages and will eventually experience the same problems that Jack and Sarah have: they won’t know how to talk to people.

I’m not asking you to throw away your phone or ditch your text message plan, but what I am asking, for the good of all of us, or at least to avoid future awkward dates or interviews, is to look up from those small screens and experience the world around you. Introduce yourself to someone new. Talk to your crush instead of stalking them on Facebook or Twitter. Call your parents instead of texting them between classes. Go visit your old friends instead of casually liking their profile pictures.

There is a disease that is killing the art of conversation, and that disease is texting. The only cure is to talk to people, face-to-face.

It sounds scary and difficult, I know, but it could make all the difference.