A student walks into their first period and puts their phone away. When they get to their seat, they look around to see that everyone is still on their phones. They wonder if their parents are right when they say phones are a serious issue.
People have noticed that younger generations are more attached to their phones than others. In a recent court case that questioned whether or not social media was a defective product targeted to vulnerabilities in young people’s brains, they had Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook and Instagram, come to the stand to address this exact issue. The issue of whether or not social media is actually addictive.
“I do think social media addiction is real, and research supports that,” Freshman Campus Principal Sean Sterner says. “Many social media platforms are intentionally designed to be engaging and keep users coming back.”
Everyone has noticed the rise in phone use over the past couple of years, but specifically since COVID, data has shown that 50.4% of teens ages 12 to 17 spend four or more hours of time on their phones.
“I 100% think social media addiction is a thing,” MCHS senior Olivia Smith says. “I think it’s probably the most normalized addiction that we have. Because everyone is on their phones so much, we don’t even realize.”
When trying to solve the issue of phone use in school, MCHS has tried a couple things, though none of them have really stuck.
When the rule is introduced, it works for a while, but eventually it falls through.
“Yeah, I definitely do think it’s (phones) an issue,” Smith says. “I’m not exactly sure how I would go about solving it. I feel like every solution that they’ve tried has failed.”
There are many motives besides trying to get students to focus on school work to lessen the amount of phone use at MCHS.
“When students struggle with social media, we often see conflict and drama carry over into school, including disagreements with classmates,” Sterner says. “We also see increased comparison, which can impact mental health. It’s easy to compare your everyday life to someone else’s highlight reel, and that’s often what social media is – filtered moments that don’t always reflect real life.”
Social media has been an issue in society for a long time. There has always been a back and forth of if using it causes issues. Now that people are studying the effects, it is becoming harder to say that there are not any issues caused by using social media.
“I think students across the country experience challenges with social media, and I don’t blame them,” Sterner says. “Social media is everywhere in our society and, whether we realize it or not, it impacts all of us.”