Greeley West AVID juniors participated in a no phone day where each student turned in their phone with their AVID teachers from 8:10 in the morning till 3:40 in the afternoon. The AVID teachers wanted to see how kids manage going a whole day without a phone. This project was to encourage students to genuinely think about their relationship with their phone.

Pace came up with the idea last year.  “Last year during Christmas bBeak I was diving into phone usage after watching some children open presents and consistently being on their phone,” Pace explained.  “One study found that the average American teenager was on their phone for 11 hrs and 30 mins a day! So I decided to dig into it with the people I count on the most to try my odd ideas – my AVID class.” 

From what they heard from other teachers, Pace and the junior teachers deduced that students were more actively engaged in classwork. Being without phones seemed to have helped them focus more in class. 

When asked if the AVID teachers joined the no phone day as well, Pace said “yes.” They did not want to leave the class to do it themselves and also turned off their phones and looked them in with the rest. 

Before the activity started teachers and students what their average screen time was when asked to raise their hand if their screen time was 4 hours or less no hands were raised. When asked to raise their hand if their average screen time was 6-8 hours around 70 percent of the class raised their hand. And when asked if their screen time was 9-12 hours 30 percent of students raised their hands. This really shows how students are really connected to their phones.  Having the no phone day could really help them take a break from it.

After the experiment, teachers asked students to take a small survey to see how they felt throughout the day. Here are some of the students’ answers.

 “Since I’ve turned in my phone it’s been boring because I don’t have any music and anything to distract me.” 

One student said “I’ve been fairly stress free and comfortable.” 

“I was feeling the urge to check my phone the first few hours but I got used to not having it as the day went on.” 

One question in the survey asked the student what was the most difficult part of the day and the most common answer was having no music throughout the day and as well as communication between people.

** CORRECTION ** An early version of this article did not include Ms. Dent’s AVID class.  We regret the error.