So many of us either have a BlackBerry, know someone with a BlackBerry or witness on a daily basis the countless tops of heads hunched over screens and fingers furiously typing throughout campus. I am not about to judge any of you addicts, as I am probably one of the worst offenders, but here are some helpful tip-offs that you, or a loved one, may be an addict. If you can relate to even one or two of these, you probably suffer from at least a mild form of BlackBerry addiction.

1. You narrowly avoid walking into people or objects on your way to class, because your eyes are glued to your BlackBerry. Worst-case scenario: You actually do walk into another person, as both of you are mesmerized by your phones.

2. You wake up in the middle of the night for water or as a result of noisy hall-mates and instinctively check your phone for new messages. This can possibly cause the ever-popular negative side effect of forgetting what you read once the morning comes.

3. You play with your phone for comfort in awkward situations. This way you can pretend to be doing something important on it when you are alone in a group of people.

4. You keep your BlackBerry on the table during meals, next to your laptop and basically within eyesight at all times. When you must put it away, you have a designated pocket or compartment for it in your bag.

5. You spend an exorbitant amount of time playing BrickBreaker. You’ve made it through all of the levels, or have spent many hours attempting this feat.

6. You hear someone else’s phone vibrate and feel a desperate and searing urge to check yours. Or even worse, you hear a vibrating noise, check your phone and realize you were imagining it. (Side note: Hallucinations of the blinking red light are also common).

7. You base who your friends are on your BlackBerry Messenger contact list. For example, during a recent discussion with a friend about an old hook up that ended awkwardly, I asked, “so are you guys on okay terms now?” Her response: “Yeah, we’re good now — we’re BBM friends!”

8. You can’t stop yourself, even if you are with a group of people, from responding to messages or looking at your phone. After you finish typing, you might even look up to find that everyone else in the group is on their phones too.

9. You can’t get through a class without checking your phone at least once. Once you see the blinking red light, you feel the incessant need to check who’s messaging you or what they are saying.

10. You feel anxious and stressed when your BBMs don’t go through. You have a panic attack when your battery gets low and will do anything to borrow a charger (including, as a friend of mine did, leaving a party to sit in a random person’s room until it had sufficient charge). And if your phone actually dies, you feel naked without it.

Suffering from a few of these myself (I won’t embarrass myself by admitting how many), I will be bold enough to encourage addicts now to put their phones away for even just a small portion of the day. Go for a walk before it gets unbearably cold, have an engaging conversation during a meal, and leave your BlackBerry back in your room — actually experience some human contact without any interruptions.