Walking down the crowded hallways of Stevenson, we see people hunched over on their phones, wearing earbuds, and not quite focused on where they’re going. The feeling of mild frustration of someone slowing down as they check their phones is something most students are familiar with. People you know walk by and you wave, but they don’t see you over their phone screen, leaving you feeling like a fan.

Technology is prevalent in every aspect of our lives nowadays; from social media to AI assistants, it seems as if technology is starting to weave into a necessity. Yet, is this transition into a tech-based life really necessary? 

The Statesman believes that students are nearing the point of addiction, but can still prevent it if they have the willpower to. With efforts from school administrators reducing technology usage, the amount of time students spend on their phone, should they follow the guidelines on technology, should decrease.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, around 77 percent of public schools in America prohibit cell phone usage in classes, which leads us to assume that school administrators and teachers nationwide are against the usage of technology at schools. At Stevenson, many teachers frown upon using phones in class, with a multitude of them opting to use phone jails to prevent students from losing attention. However, the question of whether these restrictions around technology usage are actually effective in getting students to learn remains.

Statesman asserts that students who are disinterested in engaging with the material will find other ways to keep themselves occupied other than paying attention such as playing on their iPads or doodling on tables, and restrictions on technology are not very effective in getting students who do not wish to learn to pay attention. Taking away their phones won’t suddenly make them compelled to listen in class, the student must make the conscious decision to prioritize their education, and phone jails in class can additionally further distress students who are already dreading a class.

Of course, there are some situations where phone restrictions can be beneficial. There are many students that care about the class material but are tempted to scroll through their phones during class, and restrictions can help these students disconnect from technology and focus purely on classwork. This begs the age-old question: why do students feel so tempted to scroll?

According to the National Library of Medicine, scrolling through reels and shorts releases small bursts of a well-known chemical called ‘dopamine’ in your brain. The chemical is directly responsible for the feeling of happiness in your mind and is one of the many reasons why people are so inclined to scroll. However, like all substances, your brain develops a higher tolerance to dopamine, requiring more and more to feel pleasure and compelling you to keep scrolling.

Even without the scientific data proving the negative effects of scrolling, the majority of people are aware of doomscrolling negatively impacting their lives. According to Michigan Medicine, around 50% of people ages 14-24 have said that they have thought of deleting their social media apps at least once. Teenagers recognize that they spend too much time online, yet the temptation of scrolling lures them back.

Another reason why people are chronically online is because, simply put, people tend to follow the crowd. Statesman notices that typically people are inclined to mirror the actions of others around them, creating a phenomenon known as ‘the bandwagon effect.’ In simple terms, the bandwagon effect describes the event when people adjust their behavior or join a crowd of people in an action in order to blend in with a majority of people. The bandwagon effect also explains why some people choose to spend time online, as they want to be informed of the latest trends or reels that everybody else is talking about.

Like counts and reposts, however, can also encourage negative behaviors by promoting harmful trends. An example of this is the “devious licks” trend and students stealing bathroom equipment, such as soap dispensers and toilets, from their schools to post on social media for the purpose of garnering attention and likes.

Despite the negative impacts people can experience with an overuse of technology, social media can be a wonderful tool to help connect people to their peers and family. It allows people to form stronger relations with people they might not have been able to form with before the internet, and can be a good resource to use at times. Although many videos exist of people promoting good habits, such as positivity-promoting or productivity-boosting methods, there also exists equally as many negatively impacting videos. Media promoting unhealthy habits or extreme methods, such as studying for an unhealthy amount of time or how to lose weight extremely fast, often infiltrate their way into teenagers’ feeds.

During teenage years, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH), the brain has stopped growing, yet it is still developing. Most importantly, the prefrontal cortex, which is behind decision-making, has not fully developed and will not until the mid-to-late 20s. The brain absorbs information like a sponge, adopting ideas quickly without being able to fully articulate the impact of those decisions.

Negative media can quickly work its way into a teenager’s head and impact their decisions and lifestyles. At an especially crucial moment in their lives, teenagers absorbing media promoting unhealthy ideas only serves to worsen mental health and, in some cases, physical and emotional health. 

Additionally, media is designed to be addictive, with feeds adjusting to suggest content similar to those you have watched in the past. Depending on the content you view, which could enforce positive or negative ideas, that content will be absorbed by your brain. According to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), absorbing content for prolonged periods of time can lead to increases in suicidal thoughts, anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Although the negatives of using social media seem to outweigh the positives, teenagers keep on scrolling. The pressure of keeping up with day-to-day news, new trends, and simple boredom often keeps people online to the point of unhealthiness. So, how do we stop teenagers from being chronically online?

The simple answer: you can’t. You could certainly try the  straightforward solution and just tell students to stop using phones. Does that ever work, though? Maybe it does for a few minutes, or a day, or a week if the student feels like it.

In our own school, we see people cheating the phone jail system by putting in calculators and empty phone cases all the time (or in some extreme situations, shoes and toilet paper rolls). When other students see people cheating the system, the temptation to also skirt around the rules often leads to students deciding not to follow regulations.

Bolstering the idea of students skirting around phone cases, statistics from the American Psychological Association (APA) report nearly half of all teenagers in America have a screen time of five hours or more. So how can we stop being so chronically online?

Statesman believes that setting guidelines for the amount of time you spend online is a good start to try and lessen media intake. With the world as it is today, trying to better your mental health is probably beneficial. Start off small by just reducing your screentime by 20 minutes. Or you could keep spending your time scrolling.

 The choice of how long you spend online is yours — for the better, or for the worse.