Sofia Gonzalez

Teenagers spend an average of 2055 hours online every year, which means they have wasted 106 days of the year glued to their phone.

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. — Teenagers spend an average of seven hours each day online. They spend 2,055 hours online every year, which means they have wasted 106 days of the year glued to their phone.

Los Alamitos High School is determined to make a change. On Thursday, Sept. 12, the founder of Project Reboot, Dino Ambrosi, was invited to give an assembly to grades nine through 12 about digital safety.

LAHS will not be the first school to make this change. Other high schools and colleges have also had this assembly, such as Corona del Mar High School, UC Berkeley and others.

Guest speaker Dino Ambrosi 

Ambrosi’s mission is to help students to build healthy digital habits. Although you may think of phone jails or screen time limits when someone says “healthy habits,” his plan is not to lock away your phone. 

He wants to help us be less dependent on our phones and improve ourselves. 

A former “tech addict” himself, Ambrosi struggled with unproductive use of technology. When he was a student at UC Berkeley, he began to notice how he was losing his life to his phone. His grades began to slip, and he felt like his life was out of control. 

Fortunately, he was able to recognize this issue and make a change. He was able to be remove technology for an entire month, yet it didn’t feel like it was enough. His perspective on creating healthy habits when using his phone changed from observing the way some of his coworkers implemented screen time into their jobs in a positive way.

“They were a couple of years out of college, and a lot of them knew how to use technology to make them better at their jobs,” Ambrosi said.

He realized that the problem wasn’t phones but the way we use them. When returning to school his senior year, he had better control over his phone usage. Ambrosi went from barely passing his classes to getting As, just from using his phone more responsibly.

Students’ opinions

Many students agreed that spending time on their phone takes away time that they could be working on homework or learning new skills.

“When I have my phone nearby while doing homework, I often get distracted and end up going on TikTok or Instagram and end up barely doing my homework,” said LAHS freshman Jaelyn Guidry.

Students also noticed that when taking a pause from being on a screen, they are also able to be more productive. 

“Sometimes I’ll put down my phone and take a break and find that I can spend my time a lot more productively. I learned how to crochet recently because I had extra time,” another freshman said.

Not only are students recognizing that technology is becoming distracting to them, but staff and teachers at LAHS are also noticing the effect of overusing technology.

“I think that it applies to someone in their mid-late 20s or even 30s,” said Mr. Bowen, LAHS’s assistant principal of student services and attendance.

Why is it important?

By using technology the wrong way, students take away time from being active or learning useful skills. Instead, people tend to use technology to avoid their problems. By clicking on social media, it seems like all your worries just whisk away.

But that isn’t true. Using social media can increase anxiety and stress in your life. Studies from many prestigious schools, such as Yale Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania, show that social media can increase anxiety, depression and decrease your mental health overall.

“Things are just going to get worse when that additional stress arrives,” Ambrosi said.

There are also many benefits to taking a break from social media. Iowa State University conducted a study where they asked 230 students to lower their social media usage by 30 minutes a day. The results showed that these students had less anxiety and depression. Participants also showed a much better outlook on life as an effect of limiting their time on social media. 

Although it may seem hopeless, students can still make a change. He recommends an app called ClearSpace that gives users a pause to think about why they are using social media before entering the app. If you are having trouble getting distracted while doing schoolwork, you can also place your phone in another room until you finish your task.

If you feel that social media is affecting you negatively, you need to set boundaries for yourself rather than just getting rid of it completely. Using social media isn’t harmful, but the way you use social media can affect your livelihood.