Have you noticed how many people are on their phones all the time? Have you noticed how much time you are spending on your phone daily? Whether you know this is an issue, or you don’t think you have a problem, this challenge is for you. If you have a phone, iPad, laptop, or TV, read on.
Join Integrative Health Carolinas in our Screen Time Challenge!
By Allie Temple
The Challenge:
Use under TWO hours of screen time on your phone each day for ONE week
(March 31st – April 7th).
To access your screen time on an iPhone, go to Settings>Screen Time> Last 7 Days. The average at the top right of the screen should be under two hours by Sunday.
Why should you take part?
Well, here are a few reasons.
The average person spends over four hours a day on their device. Social media from top platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and Snapchat is suspected to take up half of this time frame. Last year I completed a paper on the detrimental effects of the overuse of cell phones, and I learned all the consequences so much screen time can bring us:
3 Ways Smart Devices are Affecting Your Life & How the Challenge Regulates them:
- Sleep: Your smartphone is your sleep’s worst nightmare. Studies have shown that there is a “strong and consistent association between bedtime media device use and inadequate sleep quantity, poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness” (Scutti). Using your phone at night makes resisting the urge to check headlines or text messages much more difficult. Not only that, but your melatonin levels are thrown off by the blue light from your devices… who knew?
- Screen time ends at 8 o’clock.
- Boredom: This one is hard. We have such a convenient way to captivate our attention between Candy Crush and Facebook, it seems like a foreign idea to pick up a magazine while waiting at the dentist’s office, or simply take in your surroundings at a traffic light. Boredom leads to creativity, innovative thinking, problem solving, and strategizing. These perks of boredom can be regained through the One Week 2 Hour Challenge.
- Phone off. Boredom on. Grab a book, take a walk, or bake some cookies
- Social Relationships: We lose so many opportunities to interact with other people due to our phones. Because of this we lose vital skills to empathize and form meaningful relationships with others. A group of researchers in 2014 studied 51 children who spent five days without phones or laptops at an outdoors camp. Following this break from technology, these children were more able to “read facial expressions and identify the emotions of actors in videos they were shown than a control group who did not attend the camp”(DiGiulio).
- Make some small talk, put your phone down when you’re in a conversation, and learn about the people around you.
An Important Note
- This is a challenge to benefit you. If you choose to use other electronic devices because you are bored for more than two hours, it is your loss. That being said, doing productive work on your computer is completely fine; the text is larger and does not cause as much strain on your eyes.
Here’s the Sign Up Link: https://goo.gl/forms/NIWYYZ0GiAxa0Io83
This will take you to a link to put in your contact information. The challenge will begin on March 31st and last until April 7th. Once you sign up I will send an email to give you more information on how to send me your results on the last day of the challenge.
I will send you a survey to take after you complete the challenge about how reducing your screen time impacted your life.
Thank you for taking charge of you health and for helping me complete my Senior Exit Project.
Yours warmly, Allie Temple
