Students at Freeport High School have an average of 7 hours of screen time per day. This is common among Gen Z and even adults in our current age. Being on your phone for 7 hours every, expecting that you live to be 80, adds up to 20 – 25 years of your life. This is a frightening statistic, and one that outlines the dystopian future we are creating for ourselves.
It hasn’t always been like this though. In 2013, the average phone screen time was only about 1 hour and 30 minutes, so what has changed? Well, for starters, we as a generation have grown up with our phones, they are an extremely advanced piece of technology that we see as normal.
Next, and maybe the most detrimental reason to the rise in screen time, is short form content. Apps like Tik Tok and Instagram promote mindless scrolling for hours on end, and they design an algorithm that is specifically designed to stop you from living your life and to keep you scrolling.
Draeden Christensen, student at FHS who has an average screen time of 13 hours per day says, “It’s calming and very stimulating, I mean I go on my phone just to let the time pass I guess.”
This is a common sentiment among students, that they use their phones just when there’s nothing else to do. This is exactly what is destroying our generation. Since we have a dopamine farm in our pockets, we are never really bored, this is a big problem.
Without boredom, there is no true excitement. Just like how you need sadness to truly value joy, you need boredom to truly value what’s real. You need to be able to find excitement in the little things. That is impossible when you can’t just sit in silence every once in a while.
Mr. Giuffre, science teacher at FHS, said, “I think cell phone usage is out of control among young people in general, especially in school. We all know it’s a huge distraction.”
This is a very good thought. I think we can all agree, even as students, that deep down, we know that our phones are bad for us. We might enjoy them but really, if you really are thinking about it, we are being taken advantage of daily by our technology.
So please, next time you are bored, instead of scrolling, just sit with your mind and the silence. You may find that it’s more enjoyable than you’d expect.