“Put your phone away.” “Get off your phone!” “Time for a phone break.” Everywhere we go, we hear something like this—but maybe that’s because everywhere we go, our phones are in front of our faces. But why? Why are we itching to pick it up, to check for something that feels so urgent? Perhaps the device you keep in your pocket is rather addictive.
Although it’s not official yet, many professionals agree: Phone addiction is real. A study from University of Korea in Seoul found that the brain is chemically altered from heavy cell phone use, similar to how it is changed from substance abuse. The implications of living on your cell phone don’t stop there, either. Everyone knows high schoolers don’t like to go to bed early, but our phones have a large impact on many of our routines, including sleep. The blue light emitted from smartphone screens tells your brain, “hey, it’s time to be awake!”, which is why it can be so hard to fall asleep after turning your phone off at night—it’s like your brain just ran laps in the sunshine, then was shoved into a dark room without a moment to catch its breath. It’s recommended that you put your phone away an hour before you go to bed, so that your mind has time to catch up on everything that happened, because teenagers can do a lot in one day! But it’s significantly harder to do anything when you constantly don’t have enough sleep; in fact, sleep deprivation is quite possibly correlated to the mental health crisis that has hit our generation so hard. Cell phone abuse can influence more parts of our lives than we give it credit for, and it is rarely positive.
But what does this look like at Hempfield when you look at those around you? I asked a couple of teachers who have been working long before smartphones had an impact. It used to be that there wasn’t a computer on their desk or a projector in their room; now almost every student who walks into their room has a phone. When I asked one teacher what relationship their students had with technology, they said it was “an addiction”. Teachers said that students who don’t want to put their phones away are more distracted and don’t do as well on tests, but beyond the classroom, one teacher mentioned seeing a lack of “depth of thought”. A teacher described how students who are frequently on their phones have shorter attention spans and less emotional maturity, partially because we are constantly reacting to emotional messages, rather than discussing drama in person, which takes dedicated time. There must be a line between the phone and life outside of it, and many teachers have implemented one in their classrooms, from phone homes, offering participation points for having it put away, or simply giving several reminders to have it in your bag and out of sight. The battle with boundaries will continue for a long time, but if we as a community, as a nation, and as a world can learn how to balance the benefits and the barriers of smartphones, I believe we will find ourselves the better for it.
Works Cited
“Cell Phones and the Brain.” Cell Phone Addiction, by Bradley Steffens, San Diego, CA, ReferencePoint Press, 2020, pp. 40-50. Emerging Issues in Public Health. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7790100008/GVRL?u=land18748&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=6c7b0ff4. Accessed 4 Jan. 2026.
Steffens, Bradley. “The Making of a Public Health Crisis.” Cell Phone Addiction, ReferencePoint Press, 2020, pp. 8-18. Emerging Issues in Public Health. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7790100005/GVRL?u=land18748&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=ffb4deda. Accessed 4 Jan. 2026.
