While many use breaks as an opportunity to veg out on technology, senior Dilliram Kadariya spent his fall break off the grid, backpacking 16 miles of the Ouachita Trail in three days with 14 other students. 

In those three days without a cell phone to command his attention, he said he felt “very calm and engaged” with his surroundings.

“It was very conducive for meditation practice. Whenever I was bored, I would be mindful of my thoughts, and that would bring me back to the present,” Kadariya said.

Reagan Barriere, who went on the same backpacking trip, said that being away from their phone made them feel more connected to who they are.

They said, “I realize[d] what things matter and what [things] don’t, and ultimately, it’s all very freeing.”

Concerns of phone use

According to a 2024 study of 1,000 Americans, the average American spends four hours and 37 minutes on their phone daily. For an individual who got their first phone at 12 and lived to 76, this would equate to 12 years dedicated to staring at a screen.

UCA’s Director of the Counseling Center, Susan Sobel, said, “Research has found a correlation between excessive screen time and increased rates of depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, isolation and even suicidal ideation. 

“Physical issues can also develop, such as eye strain, neck and back pain, and less physical stamina, since a lot of time spent on phones is sedentary,” Sobel said.

Sobel said that the staff at the UCA Counseling Center have interacted with students who feel “isolated and lethargic” due to their excessive phone use.

Student stories

Senior and computer science major Jacob Speights said that he got his first phone in the fifth grade and first got Instagram in 2015.

“The first two social media apps I had were Instagram and Snapchat, and both of them had very addictive systems that appealed to kids my age,” he said. “I distinctly remember always feeling the need to answer Snapchat messages even from people I was hardly friends with.”

Senior Kevin Stinnett said he got his first phone at age 12, and he got an Instagram account soon after. 

Stinnett said that getting social media at 12 affected him but not in ways that were all negative. “It allowed me to communicate with friends and people from school easier,” Stinnett said. 

Senior Olivia Peck said that she got her first phone at 12 and first got social media at 13. 

Peck said that her phone use was monitored by her parents until she turned 16, so she didn’t think she was affected by getting a phone at that age.

Senior Raegan Breeding did not get her first phone until she was 15 and first got social media at age 17. 

“I was one of the last of my peers to get a phone, but my phone use tripled after getting social media,” she said.

Speights said that his average screen time was three hours and 23 minutes a day, with YouTube, Snapchat and Spotify contributing the most to his screen time.

Speights said that he pulls his phone out most often during meals, when he gets back from school or work and before he goes to sleep.

“I tend to feel a brief period of relief as I turn on my phone or go to whatever app I want to at the time, but after needlessly rotting for half an hour I feel drained and a bit guilty,” Speights said.

Speights said he would like to spend less leisure time on his phone and more time “practicing guitar, working out or reading the Bible.” 

“The ease and pleasure we get from pulling out our phones is so addictive and so different from everything else we do for leisure. I think the only thing that comes close is addictive drugs,” Speights said.

Breeding said her average phone screen time is three hours, and she spends most of her time on the messaging app.

Breeding said she has made an effort to decrease her phone screen time. She said that when she started college, her screen time was almost eight hours a day.

“It was insane. And weaning myself off? I felt like I was going through literal withdrawals,” she said. “I craved my phone, felt jittery anytime I sat and did nothing, and I caught myself reaching for my phone a million times an hour.”

Breeding said, “I still haven’t broken the habit of obsessively checking my phone for notifications or sitting and waiting on notifications.”

Stinnett said that he averages three hours and 23 minutes of phone screen time a day and uses Reddit, Youtube and Tiktok the most.

Stinnett said he is most drawn to his phone when he is procrastinating, “whether it be homework, getting out of bed in the morning, or going to bed at night.” 

Stinnett said that his phone use makes it difficult to focus when he’s away from his phone. 

Peck said her daily average screen time is four hours and five minutes, and she spends most of her screen time on TikTok, Snapchat, Spotify, messages and Instagram. 

Peck said that she uses her phone when she is bored, although sometimes she gets “so bored that even using [her] phone doesn’t help.” 

“If there was a screen time number for listening to music, that number would be very high,” she said. “I usually always have an AirPod when listening to music because it helps me focus. I also watch stuff when I am eating like an iPad kid and before bed to go to sleep.”

Speights said that after a week where he had used his phone an average of five hours a day, he was inspired to challenge his friends to a competition to see who could have the least amount of screen time.

“When I wasn’t at my dorm, I had no choice but to talk to people or study,” he said. “As an introvert and serial procrastinator, this was very good for me. When I had no more schoolwork to do — which almost never happened prior — I practiced guitar and played video games with my friends,” Speights said.

“I felt fantastic. I completed more schoolwork ahead of time than I had in months, and my energy levels were much higher,” Speights said.

Speights said that the competition element helped him to stay accountable.

“Had I made this an individual goal instead, my daily average would have been double or more,” Speights said.

Speights said he won the competition he held with his friends with an average of 57 minutes of screen time a day for the week they participated.

Breeding chose to take a break from her phone for a four-hour hike on Goat Trail. Afterward, Breeding said she “felt so lightt.”

Breeding said that the break from screen time made her want to change her life permanently and replace her screen time with physical activity.

Richard McFadden, an 80-year-old non-traditional student majoring in “personal happiness,” said, “Having lived most of my life prior to the invention of the cell phone, I love the accessibility to the world that it provides. The downside is that for me, it can be a major distraction.”

“I’m grateful to live in the smartphone age. The phone is not the problem. How it is used is,” McFadden said.

UCA sociologist opinions

UCA’s Associate Professor of Sociology, John Toth, and Assistant Professor of Sociology, Stacy Lom, discussed the social implications of phone habits among young adults. 

“So, is cell phone usage good or bad for young people? My answer is yes. It’s always both,” Toth said.

Lom said that phone reliance tendencies affect people of all ages.

“[New technologies] bring with them not only changes in the types of equipment or software that people might use but also changes in ideologies about self and society. In this sense, a new technology is always double-edged: it enables and constrains personal and social possibilities,” Toth said.

Lom said people who have grown up not knowing a world without technology might feel pressure to “conform to certain expectations.” 

“It seems like a lot of people are more comfortable interacting with each other using a screen even if they’re in the same room, as opposed to actually talking to each other,” Lom said.

“I think we often think it’s weird for someone to just not be doing anything that’s obvious and just [be] thinking. I think we think of that as atypical,” Lom said.

Lom said that looking busy has become a status symbol in society.

Toth said that cell phones can allow young people to connect and make friends online. “This feature is particularly powerful for youth who may not have a sense of belonging in their local areas,” he said. 

“On the other hand, online interactions can expose young people to harmful content or unsafe spaces more easily than local, face-to-face interaction,” Toth added.

Sobel said that phones can be positive and, in some cases, safer when first getting to know somebody but that “further relationship development needs to happen in person at some point.” 

“Phones are great as part of the way we communicate with others, but shouldn’t serve as the primary way we do so,” Sobel said.

Lom said there is a consensus that something is lost when communication is not made face-to-face and that text-based communication can lead to misunderstanding.

“I do get frustrated when trying to have a serious conversation over text. It always ends up sounding like a debate when it’s all laid out in a column,” Speights said.

Lom said that in the qualitative research class that she teaches, students are given the assignment to observe people somewhere on campus once a week.

“There are these symbols that we associate with all of this technology,” Lom said. “For example, if we … come across someone who is either looking at their phone or some other technology and has headphones of some sort in, it seems to be very common to interpret that as that person doesn’t really want to interact with anyone.” 

Lom said that when she shows up to class early to set up, it makes her happy to hear students interacting instead of sitting in silence on their phones.

Identifying and rectifying phone addiction

In her blog for the University of Rochester, Hilary Harter said that phone separation anxiety, loss of large amounts of time from “mindless” phone browsing, productivity interference, phone use in dangerous settings, hearing phantom phone alerts and struggling to delay checking your phone after you receive an alert are all signs that a person may be addicted to their phone.

Harter suggests tracking and setting limits on screen time, modifying notification settings, being mindful of apps that use the most screen time and considering their removal and doing alternative activities that don’t involve phone use to address phone addiction.