For one of our assignments over the last week, we were given a small field notes j
ournal and a black pen. We were told to log every instance we looked at or used our cell phones/smart phones in these journals for 48 hours. We had to set up a table in our journals on each page so we could log the nece
ssary information we needed (date, time, length of time spent, the activity, whether it be a social interaction, textual or both, the activity we were doing and what was interrupted).
I thought this would be easy; I used my phone a good amount of time so I would have enough information to get the data I needed, but I never thought I would think of my self as obsessed with my phone until I finished the 48 hours.
Within the first day, February 24, 2015, from about 11:00 am to 1:44 am, the next day, I used or looked at my phone 73 times. Just seeing that number, it doesn’t seem as bad, but when you look closely at the data collected, I came to the conclusion that I am addicted to my cell phone. Within the hour of 11:00 am to 12:00pm, I used my phone 9 times, a total of 11 minutes and 20 seconds. It may not seem that bad, but the worst part is that it interrupted my time in class.
Another example is another time I was in class. I guess I get distracted very easily, or maybe some of my classes are boring :). From 6:00 pm, on the same day, until 7:30 pm, I used my phone 12 times. Again, it doesn’t seem that bad until you look at the time committed. 27 minutes and 42 seconds. I spend a half hour of the hour and a half class on my phone. I am actually mortified!
The second day of doing this experiment, I was more cautious of my cell phone used; I didn’t want to spend as much time as I did on the phone as the day before, but I also got so tired of constantly filling in my journal. The second day I wouldn’t count as accurate. For example, I only used my phone 36 times that day. Thats half of the the amount of times I used it the day before. I think if February 25, 2015 was accurate, the numbers should have been consistent or somewhat close.
From 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm, I recorded that I used my phone at 2:05, 3:10, 3:25, and 3:52. They all happened to be text messages, but for some reason, looking back at it, I feel as though I wasn’t honest with myself. During those hours, I recorded that I used my cell phone for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. That doesn’t seem reasonable at all.
In total, I used my cell phone for approximately 5 hours and 8 minutes within a 48 hour period. I recorded that out of those hours, I used my phone for textual interactions more frequently than social interactions, textual being text messages, e-mail, internet searching and social being phone calls and FaceTime. My time recorded for social interactions was 1 hour, 59 minutes and 50 seconds, while my time recorded for textual interactions was 2 hours and 6 minutes. The time I used both interactions, like Facebook or Instagram, was 3 minutes.
After doing this assignment, I am extremely embarrassed about how much I rely on my cell phone. It has become a part of my life, along with many others as well. Now knowing these numbers, I have been trying to limit the amount of time I used my cell phone, especially during classes. I challenge those who are reading this blog post to do the same, and reach out to me with the data you collected by tweeting me at @JScoras
Once Upon a Pretty Little Glee 