Americans are spending more time on their phones than ever before—over four hours a day by some accounts. The devices run our lives, showing us where to go and what to buy. We wake up to their alarms and turn them off just before we doze off.

But what if you had to part with your phone, even for just 15 minutes? It may sound easy. But our recent informal social experiment required nearly a dozen willing students to sit in a room with their phones nearby, and untouchable for a quarter of an hour. As our video attests, the results are pretty funny. One participant likened it to waiting for the dentist.

Try it. It’s harder than it looks.

Bill Politis can be reached at bpolitis@bu.edu.