Banning phones in schools might help children concentrate in class but how will it impact their overall relationship with devices?
Tuesday started like any other: before I was even really awake, I looked at my phone. Weather. Transphobes. Did Anybody Famous Die? Potential Polly Pocket/Scrabble/Settlers of Catan movies. But unlike other days, I then put it in a drawer.
I’m not good at regulating my behaviour. This is obvious to anyone who has ever watched me order chocolate on the internet. So it was with both fear and curiosity that I accepted a challenge from my editor to experience a day without my phone. The challenge was in response to phone bans hitting public high schools around Australia, something Unesco has called for globally in an effort to reduce distraction, cyberbullying and improve learning.
Having put my phone away, I faced my first hurdle: my morning run. It’s more of an attempt to outrun, really – an exercise in getting as far away from my thoughts as possible, via podcasts or music. At first, all I could hear was the sound of my own breaths. I wondered, is that what breaths are meant to sound like? Then my footfall, loud and quick. Was I like this every morning? With music playing, my runs are gazelle-like, elegant and swift. But it wasn’t too long before other sounds crept in. A couple of birds were shouting at one another. A kid on a bike furiously rang a bell. I heard a spoon clink in a coffee cup.
“Hello!” I said to whoever was nearby. “Good morning!”
Once home, I ticked a few things off my to-do list. I spent a few minutes finishing a job I’d been putting off for weeks. Thought really seriously about doing my tax return. Sent several more emails. Nearly opened the ATO website but didn’t. I felt an unfamiliar sense of quiet achievement. As I completed yet another extremely simple task I should have done weeks ago, I thought, “Am I concentrating harder or filling in empty time? Is this productivity or am I afraid to stare into the void?”
Eventually I realised I was going to have to go to the bathroom. My heart raced with inaction, with the sensation of being trapped in a small room devoid of stimulus. It was a relief to be finished, in more ways than one.
From there, my anxiety settled. Work flowed more easily, although eventually I began to fantasise about all the exciting content I would come back to when the day was over. And I recognised this last feeling: a craving. Soon my ban would be over and I could gorge on as much phone as I wanted. Despite a lovely run and improved productivity, I hadn’t regulated my behaviour at all – I’d just delayed the inevitable.
