Jonas Doerr – Opinion Columnist

This weekend the Peer Assistants are sponsoring their annual “100 Hour Challenge.” No, it’s not a challenge to stay up 100 hours in a row, that would obviously just be a normal weekend for college students. What it actually involves is people abstaining from binge drinking or from drinking alcohol at all to promote healthy choices around alcohol on campus.
It’s for a good cause: alcohol misuse can have serious consequences, and nobody’s complaining about the free food and games the PAs facilitate. There’s something else on campus that might benefit from a similar program, however. What if students tried a 100 Hour Challenge to abstain from their phones?
Before you send me any angry letters through campus mail, hear me out. College students have a love-hate relationship with their phones. Sometimes they are wonderful sources of information and friendship, and sometimes they keep people up all night destroying a random person’s fortress or looking at a stranger’s terrible wardrobe choices. Sometimes phones feel like another limb, and sometimes one just wants to throw it against the wall in frustration. I actually just tried that, but it didn’t do anything to my phone. The irony is clear: I like my phone too much to throw it hard enough to break it.
It would probably be nearly impossible for students to do a ‘100 Hour Phone Challenge’. There are a number of healthy reasons why they might not be able to. Phones provide a useful form of communication, and it would be much more inconvenient to have to email people instead of texting or calling. Social apps like Snapchat and Instagram would be a lot less accessible, making it harder to stay in touch with far-away friends and family. Some people use their phones for schoolwork. What if our Duos expire and we can’t log on? Although, that may be a plus. Most importantly, they allow us to snap a photo if a celebrity like President Bergman comes by.
There are also some unhealthy reasons why it would be difficult for students. Many social media apps have features that compel students to spend more time on them than they might ordinarily choose. Endless scrolling, distracting notifications, and other similar tactics manipulate students’ choices of what to do with a free night. Plus, it would be almost impossible to notice an incoming snowball ambush if you were on your phone. Phones are also a safety hazard!
Other than snowball ambushes, there are several more serious reasons why it might be healthy for students to reconsider their relationships with their devices. Charlie Potts, Dean of the First-year and Junior Classes, has done research on student’s relationships with social media and their phones. He says, “While phone use can increase our ability to connect with others, getting sucked into bad habits can actually increase feelings of isolation and loneliness. And it can disrupt sleep patterns, distract you from academics, and create barriers for social relationships.”
So would a 100 Hour Phone Challenge help fix these issues? Could it make us feel more connected, sleep better, study better, and have better friendships?
I’ve tried hiding my phone in my closet to get away from it before. I worried about things like not getting an important text, missing an update on my favorite sports team, or not hearing that my brother lost an arm to a wild wildebeest, but nothing terrible happened. In fact, after a little bit I completely forgot about my phone. That is, I did until the next day when I really wanted to check who had Snapped me.
While I’m off my phone I notice benefits like increased focus, more creativity, and the ability to be more present with friends. Can those benefits last? It isn’t really feasible for most people to give up their phones forever, so is it worth it to put phones for several hours?
Dean Charlie Potts had an educated opinion on this too: “Phone abstinence might feel like a quick fix to ‘detox’ yourself, but it’s a pretty unrealistic option long term given the roles of phones in our lives and may not create lasting change,” he says. Instead of giving up on one’s phone entirely for a short period of time, he recommends “small, achievable goals for improving how you feel about your phone use – like using app time limits, leaving your phone behind when you go to the caf, not using your phone for 30-45 minutes before bed, etc,” he says. It’s possible and more likely for you to achieve your goals with easier strategies like these.
Using sheer willpower to beat all the addictive apps on one’s phone sounds and feels really good, but it’s not sustainable. Eventually you will give in, and you’ll just feel worse because you were trying so hard not to.
On the other hand, if you try to do things like slowly reducing the amount of time you’re spending on your phone or choosing times during the day to not use it, you will probably be more successful. You can gain long-term benefits for yourself like better sleep or more personal, real-life relationships. Maybe a 100 Hour Challenge for phone use isn’t the right call, but don’t give up! There are plenty of other methods you can dial up to improve your digital wellbeing.