In October, three teachers and two students voluntarily gave up their phones for a social experiment.
Math teacher Jonathan Craft: “Friday without my phone wasn’t too bad. It was hard to focus on working during plan time without music playing in the background. Working in complete silence was difficult for me to do.”
Senior Daxon Flanders: “Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I paid more attention during class since I didn’t have the distraction of a phone. The only problem I had with the day was that I couldn’t listen to music or respond to people if they needed something.”
Daily average was 6h and 40m
On that day it was 3h and 16m
English teacher Danny Smith: “I think this was a great exercise. I placed my phone on the counter behind me, still within reach but out of sight. At first I picked up my phone six or seven times during the first block just naturally. Each time I picked it up, I remembered it was off and I wasn’t using it. It felt almost like a bad habit or an impulse anytime I was bored or felt awkward with the silence in the room. I moved my phone to my backpack during the second period and that made a massive change. I couldn’t see my phone and I couldn’t feel it, so I stopped thinking about it. As the day went on, I felt the urge go away. I no longer needed to know what my friends were doing, where they were or what they had to say. In my free time instead of being on my phone, I was able to get some homework done. I wasn’t mindlessly scrolling through my phone just to live through others. Instead, I was making to-do lists, thinking about swimming and I was focusing on myself. My screen time went from 10 hours to three, which in retrospect is crazy to think about. I spend 10 hours of my day every day looking down instead of looking up. It made me think about all of the things I might have missed had I not had my phone.
On average, I spend about two hours on TikTok, an hour on Twitter, 53 minutes on Bleacher Report, 40 minutes on SnapChat, 32 minutes on messages, 26 minutes on fantasy apps,18 minutes on Instagram and four hours on other apps.
Last week Twitter was used for 8 hours and 13 minutes
TikTok was used for 7 hours and 10 minutes
SnapChat was used for 4 hours and 54 minutes
Messages was open for 4 hours and 50 minutes
Instagram was open for 2 hours and 17 minutes
Fantasy football was open for 1 hour and 52 minutes.
All that time wasted just looking at my phone. I hang out with my friends often. I’m physically with my friends but not mentally there. It’s almost sad to think about. Am I killing my friendships or any relationships because I’m addicted to my phone? It’s something I’ll be asking myself for a while.
Sophomore Carson Colibert: “ I felt a lot more focused on what’s going on around me and I got a lot of my extra work done in class.”
