Today's cell phone outages shine a light on how much tech has become part of our daily lives.
Pew Research Center found 97 percent of Americans own some kind of cell phone, 90 percent of them own a smart phone.
With cell phone dependency, social media impacts and methods of information spreading under a microscope, Jonathan Kersting with Pittsburgh Technology Council said maybe the outage isn't all that bad.
“Maybe it would be nice to not have our phones turned on and be that accessible . . . for awhile so we can have some of that down time that we’re all supposed to have and focus time,” said Kersting.
But he adds, being forced to disconnect like many were today also puts some at a disadvantage with work and contacting family.
A study in Harvard Business Review found we're interrupted by our phones every 13 minutes while we're awake, even more frequent in younger people.