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COLUMBIA (WACH) -- Could your Blackberry, Droid, iPhone etc. become an addiction?

If you take a look around you at any moment of the day, you see it, people glued to their smart phone, some who literally cant leave home without it.

Every time I walk out the door you know I pat my right pocket to make sure my phones there," says Chris Abbotts

Chris is the Interactive Managing editor at WACH Fox and gave up his Droid Incredible for a week to prove just how addicting smartphones can be.  We had a question and answer session to talk about his

Janet: What if I gave you this phone instead  [handing Chris an older model flip phone] its still a cell phone, would this be ok?

Chris: I actually tried to use one of these a few weeks ago and i could not do it.

Janet: Why?

Chris: Because it doesn't have a keyboard, its too small.

Chris is one of over a hundred million smartphone users who wants everything they need for their day in the palm of their hands, alarm clock, calendar, and even a phonebook.

"I woke up about an hour late one morning you know because i just expected my phone to be my alarm clock," says Chris.

Steve Arneson, a licensed professional counselor, says things like that can send some into a cellular panic.

"They go ooooh I've gotta call back or I missed an alert or something like that because their day is dictated. A lot of people, when it gets to the level of dependence. That's really what the addiction is, is a dependence on the smartphone," Arneson says.

Chris learned that first hand, "I found out his week that they are absolutely addicted."

So what's the solution for those like Chris who just can't seem to crack the habit of constantly being dependent on their cell phone?

"You've gotta take control of that, that cant be your brain," says Arneson "you have to use your brain in order to function in a healthy manner."

However, Chris says his incredible, is just that and cuts out the thinking for him, "It does everything uuuuhh social media, Facebook...Twitter I'm constantly connected."

"There's times when you need to turn it on there's times when you need to use it for work, there's times when you need it to text and get messages back and forth," says Arneson "there's other times when you just need to turn it off."

So at the end of this little experiment when Chris turned his smartphone back on the missed calls, emails and tweets came rolling in.

"My phone was full I haven't gone that long without checking messages for years, probably ten years," said Chris.