Opinion Piece: Phone Addiction
By Caleb Wakefeild

Students who are addicted to their phones can’t or struggle to stay off them because they can’t help themselves even though they know it’s a school rule. When students use their phones it releases dopamine.

Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that you crave more because it makes you feel good. The brain lowers the dopamine to protect itself and the students, their brain makes them think “Oh, I need more dopamine and stimulation,” the brain feels like it needs dopamine to survive and to feel good and motivated. For example, if a student in the morning drinks coffee every day and every day their body shuts off its energy a little and says “where’s my cup of coffee?” so when this student doesn’t have their coffee they feel terrible. because their body says where is that energy i need. The students who are not addicted still have a need to use their phones to contact their parents and communicate with them. So it is impossible for them to follow that policy and communicate with their parents,and the students who don’t have a phone it doesn’t really impact them. In conclusion, the cellphone policy helps some of the students who are addicted a little bit to be off their phones. But most of the students can’t help themselves, because their body freaks out when they don’t have that dopamine hit, kind of like energy from coffee to wake you up. The students who are not addicted need to use their phones to communicate with their parents. In conclusion, the cellphone policy could be improved on or worked upon to help students with their cellphone addiction. The school and the state government could also improve the cellphone policy to allow students who need to use their phones to be able to communicate with their parents and when they improve the policy, it could maybe help students learn how to use their phones responsibly.