My Teenage Decline

Chapter 1

Beep beep, beep beep. The familiar sound of a notification. Is it a text message or could it be a tag on Facebook or maybe it will be a snap chat from someone special?

My name is Jared Worth and I am a teen phone and sex addict, those were my opening words at the group therapy session that my shrink wanted me to attend. Yes, I use my phone a bit but I wouldn't say that I am addicted to it. My mum, on the other hand, says I am always buried in my phone, she says it is like my face is being sucked into the screen and I am never there. What does she know is what I say, I am 17 and I can do what I want!!

How wrong was I? My addiction started when I got my first smartphone. I remember walking into the local phone shop with my hard-earned cash from my job flipping burgers at the local fast food joint, I hated that job but then it paid me money that I could waste and buy myself into the 21st century with the top of the range smartphone. I had waited months to get this phone, everyone at college had a smartphone and they were all over Facebook, Twitter, and this awesome self-destructing photo sharing app Snapchat. The things people were telling us they were sending and receiving were just awesome. I had to get myself into this. I had to get myself a smartphone.

I walked into the phone shop and I knew exactly what phone I wanted to get, I wanted the brand new iPhone. It looked amazing, the specs were the best and it had access to all the best apps. I just had to have this phone even though it would cost me £500, to me the cost did not matter, the phone was all I cared about. If I could have foreseen my addiction then maybe I would not have got this phone, but sadly foresight is not a power that I possess. I handed over my cash and then I hot-footed back home so I could get this bad boy plugged in, fully charged and all the apps I want to use.

About an hour later I arrived home, usually, the bus took twenty minutes but with the yearly carnival in town most of the roads were back-to-back traffic, so the journey took three times as long. Normally I wouldn't care but I had my new phone with me that I wanted to be using. The bus stop is right outside my house, this made my life so much easier for getting to college, work, and into the shops. Finally, I made it home, I walked up the pathway to the house I lived in with my mum for the last two years after Dad left, he had an affair with his secretary and now they live together. I hate him for what he did but that's enough about that, back to my shiny new phone.

I unlocked the door and was greeted by the sound of silence, bug fat silence. Mum must have gone out I thought then I remembered today was her best friend Lizzie's birthday, I had a slight crush on Lizzie. Lizzie was tall, slim, and had beautiful long brunette hair, she had piercing blue eyes. I would always lose my words when Lizzie was about and talking to me, she knew she had this effect on me, I could tell, however, this story is about my phone addiction, maybe I will tell my Lizzie story another time, let us see how we go. So, I entered into the silence, locked the door, and headed to my bedroom. Once in my room, I carefully unpackaged my new phone and plugged it on to charge. I had waited and saved for so long I was going to make sure this phone was fully charged before I put it to use.

With my phone powering up I nipped down to the kitchen to get something to munch on, I have a major thing for cheese at the moment so I settled on a cheese toastie. There isn't much that beats cheese and bread especially when it involves melted cheese and toasted bread. With toastie in hand, I raced back up the stairs, it had only been ten minutes but I was hopeful, the reviews of this iPhone told of fast charging times, so this would be a good test. When I left my room the phone was on fourty two percent charge, ten minutes later and it was on, yep you guessed it, fourty two percent.

I was in a rage, how can this phone not have even charged a percent at least, I immediately got on my laptop, loaded up Chrome, and typed in a Google search "iPhone not charging". The first thing that popped up was to check the cables and the plug, I went over to the electric socket, and OMG what an idiot I was, I hadn't even switched the socket on, it was my fault. I felt like such an idiot, I was now going to have to wait a bit longer to use my new phone. I settled for loading iTunes up on my laptop and looking at what apps and music are available for me to download once I get mobile.

Half an hour passed and I was getting a massive urge to use my phone, I just wanted to get on it, download some apps, and play around with it. I scooted my chair over to my bedside table and checked the battery status, eighty-nine percent, I was eleven percent away from being able to use it. I got very excited and pushed myself back to my desk, I clicked on a few more apps and read some reviews. I already knew I would be downloading Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, I had also decided that I would need Spotify to play some banging tunes and what's app to keep up to date in the group chats. When it came to games, I was a bit stuck, do I go for Pokemon Go or Candy Crush, it was such a difficult decision, suddenly I heard a bing sound.Could it be I thought with glee in my mind, could my phone be fully charged, could it be maxed to one hundred percent? I jumped up quickly and hopped to my bed, I grabbed the phone and to my utter joy, one hundred percent appeared right in front of my eyes. Little did I know that from this point on my life was about to go downhill and very fast. This moment in time was when my addiction to my smartphone began. Welcome to my journey of self decline.