Did you know that 83.8 percent of the middle school thought that mobile phones should have been allowed at the social in April? Only 16.2 percent of the middle school thought it was right to prohibit phones, and I agree with them.
Mobile phones are making us antisocial. Most students in the middle school can use their phones whenever they want, before and after school, so they shouldn’t have them during the school day as well. The social only lasted for two hours and anybody can last for that long without using a phone.
A lot of people disagreed with me for different reasons. Some students argued that they needed to be in contact with their parents and that they also wanted to take pictures to keep as memories. However, if someone needed to talk to their parents urgently, they could have simply asked a teacher. Also, if a student did take pictures and then posted them on social network sites, then students who weren’t able to attend might feel left out. Although phones allow us to take photographs and record our experiences as memories, if you spend your whole time recording things, then you’re never actually experiencing them as they happen.
Fifth-grade humanities teacher Ms. Anne Edwards agrees. “There’s no reason to have the phones except for taking photos and a solution for that is that we could maybe get a photographer next time.”
The reasons that students shouldn’t have had access to mobiles goes on, including the fact that it would be incredibly easy to lose your phone in a crowd or break it by dropping it. If people were on their phones the whole time, they would be too distracted to look around and be aware of their surroundings.
One of the best reasons for not bringing your phone to social events is that being on your phone can make you look unapproachable. You might feel left out and so you scroll through your phone to pretend you’re fine, but that only makes it worse because it makes it less likely for someone to approach you and ask you to hang out. The social was all about talking with your friends face to face, if you were on your phone, I doubt that you would be doing that. You could miss out on a great friendship just because you were checking your latest Instagram or Snapchat feed.
Some students felt that people could have used phones to have more fun with each other by using them for interactive games. Fifth grader Alexandra Mancuso supports this and thinks that phones can help you socialize in fun and different ways. “After a while, you’ve done everything and so phones can help you have more fun.”
Fifth grader Ella Sheves makes the point that some people use their phones in a much more inclusive way, playing games together instead of ignoring others. She said that, “Some people would have socialized more with their phones.” I agree that this can be a way to break the ice if you are shy in social situations, but at some point, we are all going to have to learn how to socialize without our phones because when you are older, people do not play on their phones during social events.
The moral of this is that we are becoming addicted to spending time on our mobile phones and are not socializing with our friends and new people as much as we should. I think that sometimes it is good to just put down your phone and be in reality, even if it’s just for two hours.
