As students entered classes on the first day of school, the normal pattern of ice-breakers, name-games, and explanations of course guidelines was accompanied by a stronger than usual emphasis on rules for the use of cell phones—or, more accurately, rules limiting their use. Current cell phone protocol for IHS outlines cell phones as being “prohibited from use in classrooms and any other area of academic instruction,” unless a teacher has specifically said otherwise. For some students, these rules represent a loss of freedom, freedom to to use a device that can feel like an extension of one’s own body. The adverse effects of cell phone use, however, are a serious issue affecting high school students, with the power to impact sleep, ability to focus, and general mental health. Regardless of whether or not school cell phone rules are actually effective in reducing phone addiction, IHS students should independently take steps to limit their own cell phone dependence.
Cell phone overuse is a problem acknowledged by most teens—in a Spring 2018 Pew Research Survey of 743 teens, 54 percent said they spend too much time on their phone. Research on the subject supports this view, with numerous negative effects of compulsive cell phone use having been identified. 52 percent of the respondents to the Pew survey also reported taking steps to reduce their cell phone use, indicating that many teens are already looking for solutions to these problems. The school has tried to take reducing student cell phone use into its own hands, a well-intended effort, but in the end students themselves have the most power to reduce cell phone dependence.
For high school students, sleep, or a lack thereof, is an important issue. In an email survey by The Tattler of 383 IHS students, 55 percent of those students reported getting an average of seven or fewer hours of sleep per night. In a study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, participants who used their smartphones more often than average experienced less sleep and worse quality of sleep. Those who used their phones closer to bedtime were found to be especially likely to suffer from poor quality of sleep. Sadly, 72 percent of respondents to our survey who owned smartphones said that they usually used them in bed or immediately before going to bed. Maintaining some degree of distance between oneself and one’s phone, especially before going to sleep, is a clear path towards improved sleep and general wellness for IHS students. Having a phone at the bedside may feel like a necessity for high school students—56 percent of respondents to our survey who owned smartphones kept them within reaching distance from their bed at night—but the impact of phones on sleep makes it worth reconsidering the merits of having them on hand at all times.
Smartphone overuse also has the power to add to anxiety and stress among high schoolers. Research from California State University at Dominguez Hills demonstrates that for people dependent on their phones, not being able to look at messages can create anxiety for which checking the phone provides instantaneous relief. Checking the phone reinforces a feedback loop, solidifying dependence on it. At IHS, this sense of anxiety when a phone is not being accessed could be problematic for the student body’s mental health and ability to concentrate. This unfortunate truth makes it important that students find ways to reduce their own need to constantly have their phones at the fingertips to check.
Finding effective ways to curb dependency on cell phones is an urgent issue, given the psychological consequences as well as the existing desire of most teens to reduce phone use. Some apps exist for this purpose, either keeping track of how many times you unlock your phone as a metric from which to set goals or even going so far as to reward points for reduced phone use. Some of the more useful solutions, however, are even simpler. Removing push notifications for as many apps as possible reduces opportunities to check the screen, which can end the psychological stranglehold. Even better, turning one’s phone off entirely when concentration is needed allows the maintenance of a distance between a phone and its user. Setting clear boundaries for using the phone before going to bed can improve sleep quality and length. More than any school phone rules, a personal commitment to reducing phone dependency has the power to improve the daily life of IHS students.
Recognizing damaging effects of cell phone overuse and taking action to curb those effects is a clear path to greater wellness for high schoolers. Actually taking action on this will be an exercise on each individual’s power of self-control. School rules may try to limit student cell phone use, but to students whose cell phones are adversely affecting your well being, truly changing your relationship with your cell phone is within the hands of one person: you.