by: Liliana Rodriguez, Esmeralda Reyes, David Lopez

Bzzzzzzzzztt bzzzzzzzt. Everyone knows that tempting sound of your phone getting a notification from a friend, family, or from a loved one. When we hear/feel the vibration we have the sudden urge to check it even if we are “busy”. We have gotten addicted to our phones to the point of obsessing over when we, get a notification and can’t handle ignoring it. There are some people who have a will of iron and can ignore the temptation of the notification. There must be someone always on their phone. You can’t conversate properly with them since they might be watching a video and don’t listen to what you or the group says.

We all have been there where we try to ignore using our phone in class but maybe the conversation is just too good to stop and won’t be the same if picked up later. If the person is someone you text often you can tell their texting energy is different at times when you talk. That conversation could go on for a long time and could distract you from the important things like getting your education. That time on your phone could lead up to you being addicted, waiting for a response or just looking at the screen for a long period of time motionless.

We went asking people if they were addicted to their phone. English teacher Mrs.Edelman stated that she uses her phone about 2 hours per day but, she normally uses it because she is a parents and she uses them to read the news, parenting articles, and cooking videos. She also said that she always has to have her phone on her because she always wants to be updated with her daughter. When Benjamin Lopez was asked the same questions he said he uses his phone about 3 hours and uses his phone for Youtube videos the most. Anthony Avila which is above the average of screen time said he uses his phone 5 hours a day and mostly uses it for music and texting. Jefferson Villanueva totally goes over the average with 10 hours of screen time and uses it mainly for video games. Even though, most people are over the average, Jose Aquino does not since he uses his phone 3 hours a day and uses it for texting for the most part.

We read that the average time to use your phone is for 4 hours on average per day. What if you are using it over 4 hours a day? Are there any harmful side effects? The answer is yes, there are many harmful side affects for using your phone for more than 4 hours a day. Some of the effects are blurred vision, headaches, sleep disturbances, anxiety etc. It is recommended to not have so much hours of screen time because you really can harm your body.