Unless you're at work, returning a call with a text makes you appear socially awkward.

Editor’s Note: Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz are the sarcastic brains behind humor blog and book “Stuff Hipsters Hate.” When they’re not trolling Brooklyn for new material, Ehrlich works as a senior writer at MTV, and Bartz is a senior editor at Psychology Today. Got a question about etiquette in the digital world? Contact them at netiquette@cnn.com.

Story highlights

There are lots of ways to commit social faux pas with you're phone

Unless you're at work, don't reply to a phone call with a text

Don't be a DigiPet -- a presence on his/her phone that's just barely alive

Your friend/family member is probably much more interesting than that text

CNN  — 

If you gave most folks the choice between their smartphone and their nondominant hand, many of us would wave a one-palmed goodbye to Mr. Lefty/Righty, weld our iPhones to our wrists and grimly welcome an existence of Terminator-like efficiency.

Yup, we’re addicted to those little bleating beasts, so much so that we fold them wholly into our workaday lives, blindly committing a cornucopia of social indignities with zero cognizance.

Conversely, we look down our noses at those who commit the very same phone faux pas, hypocritically musing over their every social slight. Well, my friends, it’s time to stand up and take notice.

We’re not asking you to wholly throw out the litany of bad habits below (that is entirely impossible, and we will have executed at least four of 10 before the week is out). We merely ask you to be more aware of when you’re about to do something that, if done to you, would send you into a frothy fit of rage.

The iPhone 4S may be sailing toward us on the wings of fall, but the aforementioned bionic scenario is still a ways off (we hope).

Let’s all try not to do these:

1). Walking while texting

We know that Harold totally needs to know that you’ll be 15 minutes late to his ’70s-themed fondue party (because you had a polyester-induced wardrobe crisis), but we’re pretty sure that the owner of that baby carriage that you upended in your fervor to alert H. doesn’t give a fig about your sartorial issues. And that kid’s later-life bed-wetting will be completely your fault.

2). Pulling out the phone at the dinner table

Or pulling out the phone (for any extended period of time) during any social situation, really. Yeah, we know that the notion of beating your brother-in-law at Words With Friends has been haunting your very dreams, but your friend/family member/other of varying degrees of significance is probably much more interesting. If that is not, in fact, the case, consider hanging with your brother-in-law instead.

3). Returning a call with a text

Unless you’re in a movie theater, at work or in the middle of an important life moment, said action makes you appear socially awkward.

4). Crop-dusting

It’s Friday night and you want to RAGE! Systematically, you scroll through all of your contacts, shooting them nearly identical messages: “What R U up 2 2nite???” Whoever answers first – or whoever answers with the best, most exciting plans (jello shots and football and girls!!!) – is the winner. And you have won, too! You won the role of “Flaky Tool” among your disgruntled friend group.

5). Messenger-pigeoning

You’re watching that brand new show starring the unmatchably quirky Zooey Deschanel on Hulu when a pal texts you, asking what time you want to have dinner later. You see the text. You think to yourself, “7:30…” You commence watching Zooey dance and twirl. Three hours later, you text back, “7:30.” And thusly, you have transported humankind from a time of instantaneous communication to an era when we had to wait for rats with wings to deliver fecal-stained parchments across the sea.

6). Drunk dialing/texting

You already lost most of your dignity when you entered that dance contest after slamming five tequila shots. Retain the remainder and give your phone to a friend.

7). Lifecasting in lieu of living

You may have a problem if: your first thought when gazing up at a sun-splashed sky, rippling and luminescent like a melting watercolor, is “I have to Instagram that” instead of, “Oh, pretty sunset.” Similarly: When any semi-intelligent musing becomes worthy of a tweet.

8). Digital dallying

You stopped physically seeing this dude/chick about three weeks ago, but you still text him/her every once in a while (“Whoooaaa, it’s like unseasonably warm today!”), you still comment on all of his/her stuff on Facebook and you’re currently engaged in a vigorous game of Chess With Friends. You have, in essence, become a DigiPet – a presence on his/her phone that s/he keeps just barely alive by typing and texting. Very soon, however, your keeper will likely let you die, because you, like a DigiPet, are annoying and useless.

9). Conversations in public

“Yeah, I do think you should dump him. Cheating is just really, really unforgivable. Also, I mean, you don’t want to get crabs, right? Oh… I’m sorry, I thought you were looking for my input, seeing as how you’ve been sitting next to me at this coffee shop for the last 30 minutes, babbling into your earpiece about STDs. On that note, yeah, I think there’s a cream for that.”

10). Taking your phone into the bathroom

We’re sad that we even need to include this one.