Technology Use is Reduced!

In my first and second blog posts I introduced some of the negative side effects that technology has on people. For example, lack of social interaction and joint pains, like carpal tunnel. In my first blog post I spoke about how people don't realize how much technology is hurting them until the aftermath of it. I showed some of the statistics of the average amount of hours people go on their phones or use technology on a daily basis. It is actually quite frightening how much people use technology within a few days.

As I moved on to expand my learning and research I decided to do a field observation on a few people. I asked permission from a few of my friends to observate them but I never told them when I was going to do start my observation. After an hour of observing them I noticed that everyone was using a form of technology within an hour. One person was using a phone and their laptop at the same time. After a few minutes they put away the laptop and sat on their phone for the rest of the time period. My observation provided me with some more knowledge and also proved some of my research to be correct. There was an insignificant amount of social interaction. These people sat at a table together for an hour and rarely said anything to each other because they were so caught up using their phones and laptops. Then I had an idea.

I started to ponder a few ways I could make a change. I knew what I wanted to accomplish I just couldn't decide how I was going to do it. After thinking long and hard about how I wanted to reduce the technology use in my school, I finally found a solution to this problem. I decided I wanted to make a contest where everyone in my class can take part and also challenge themselves. The contest was who could last the longest without using their phone for two days in school. In the end the winner(s) will receive a cool prize. Once the contest started I caught ten people within a period of fifteen minutes. I heard a few people say things like '' I forgot I couldn't use it, I naturally check it every five minutes'' while others said '' I don't really care if the winner gets a good prize I need to use my phone I can't live without it.'' This just shows that people can't handle not using a phone not for even twenty minutes. As the first day ended I caught more than half of the class using a form of technology other than their laptops.

On the second day there were about fourteen others who were not disqualified. One student (Conor Meier) attempted to eliminate everyone else and did a great job resisting using his phone. By the end of the day I had two winners, neither of the contestants would even bother to check their phones. So I had to choose two winners. The victors of my contest were Conor Meier and Jonathan Saldivar. They both did an exquisite job in my contest and really helped me with my change.

I decided to interview each of them asking them both the same question. '' How did you feel not using your phone for two days?'' Jonathan responded with '' It was horrible I wasn't able to use my phone all day, I almost accidentally used it like ten times''. Conor said '' It was not as bad as I thought it would, at times I really wanted to use my phone, especially when it vibrated.'' I asked a few others and someone responded with '' You really made me realize how many times I use my phone in one day, even when I am in school and I shouldn't be using it, I check it so much more than I thought I did''.

A minute after class ended I found both of them pull out their phones right away

and use them.

After my research and being an Agent of Change I found that I really did make a difference. I reduced the amount of technology use in my class by at least 15%. My contest helped two teenagers reduce the amount of technology by almost fourteen hours. I am glad that I did this for my project and am satisfied with all the new things that I learned after researching and writing these blog posts.