It’s freezing outside. The days are short. You leave the house in darkness and arrive home as though daylight never happened. An overwhelming sense of despair seems to envelope you all too frequently. You have a severe disinterest to do anything other than nap.

Winter is a season that seems to leave even the best of us out of whack: less exercise (because who really cross-country skis?), poor eating habits (600-calorie lattes soothe me), and an unwillingness to move on weekends (considering a hangover lasts until 3 o’clock and the sun sets a mere 2 hours later). Most concerning is that we seem to have zero motivation.

Seasonal depression, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a real thing. It isn’t because it’s colder, in fact; SAD (great acronym, really) is mostly a result of the fact that in the winter we wake up before dawn and get significantly less sunlight during our waking hours than in other seasons. Common symptoms of SAD include sadness, disinterest in things you usually find enjoyable, lack of energy, and difficulty concentrating.

The good news is: you’re not alone. A lot of people get SAD. But the bad news is that seasonal depression really isn’t what you need when school, work, and other responsibilities seem to be accumulating at an impossible rate, and winter isn’t over for another few months.

So before you consider hibernating until spring, a few of these tips may help keep those winter blues at bay and your productivity at its best.

1. Plan ahead

With shorter days and an increased sense of laziness, planning out your week or, better yet, your month, will help you acknowledge how you should be spending your time. Don’t just mark down the professional or school to-do’s, plan out your exercise routine, meals, social life, meetings, family gatherings, and anything else you foresee in the coming weeks. As sluggish as you might feel, so does everyone else, and getting ahead of the herd will make you feel better.

Keep your calendar filled with to-do’s written down and in plain sight: posted on your fridge, on your bathroom mirror, or in a notebook you carry with you.

Being aware and on top of your upcoming to-do’s will also encourage those around you to do the same, making for a much more productive household, workplace, or crew. Plus, on the bright side, it helps you look ahead to the future, which is that much closer to springtime.

2. Stand up

Ever dreaded the idea of sitting for an 8 hour car ride? Well studies show that the average person actually sits for 7.7 hours every day —and this number tends to rise in the winter. Plus, depending on your type of commute, the length of your work day, and how you choose to wind-down in the evenings, your total time spent sitting could average much higher.

All that sitting has significant implications on your health — like increasing your risk of heart attack, contributing to your wintery blues, and negating all that work you’re putting in at the gym. (As someone who invests a fair amount of time and energy exercising, it’s a slap on the face to know that idle sitting time is counteracting my hard work!)

Why stand? It burns calories, improves your posture, and adds years to your life. Here’s how you can reduce your time spent sitting this winter:

• At a friend’s house? Make a point to stand and chat instead of curling into the nearest couch or chair.
• Got phone calls scheduled? Take your fully charged phone and some headphones on a walk through your home, office building, or even outside. You’ll likely be a better listener while you’re at it (and may even get some sunshine).
• Working from home? The average counter-top or table is just a tad short to be a good standing desk, so prop up a few books or get a cheap tabletop extension to raise your work space.
• Expecting to sit in class or at work? Walk or take transit to get there. If you must drive, then park at least a 5–10 minute walk away to get the blood flowing and absorb some sunlight.

3. Go outside

If not on your way to and from somewhere, you should make a point to step outside whenever you can. Walk around the block, do a lap around your building, walk to the coffee shop nearby — getting extra daylight and a blast of fresh air are keys to keeping your brain functioning at its best.

Equally as important is to dress comfortably and appropriately for the weather. You’ll be far less likely to reap benefits from a mid-day stroll in freezing weather if you’re not dressed for the occasion.

It’s all too easy in the winter to avoid the outdoors completely, but you’d be surprised how much just a few minutes of outdoor activity can revitalize a sluggish mind.

4. Drink Water

While it’s a common suggestion to keeping sharp, we should actually be drinking even more water in the winter. The drier air means our bodies aren’t getting as much moisture as we do in other seasons, resulting in dehydration which can contribute to sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, a lack of energy, and headaches.

Here are some ways to drink more water throughout your winter days:

• Drink a full glass of water first thing in the morning and right before bed.
• Drink a glass before every cup of coffee or tea that you have in your day.
• Drink from smaller cups — it will feel easier to fill up and chug down in one go. Plus, filling up your cup multiple times each day will help you stretch your legs.
• Drink through a straw. Cups fitted with a straw like this one or reusable plastic straws minimize the effort of sipping water as you work. We’re lazy beings, so anything to make a habit more accessible is helpful.

Winter has its disadvantages, but it’s only a few months long. Plan ahead, move around, and drink lots of water to keep your mind and body sharp. Your summer self will thank you.

I’m a productivity researcher and co-founder of Flipd, the app that helps you spend less time on your phone. Enjoyed this? Read more here.

How to get things done when winter is just the worst was originally published in Human Output on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A recent study found that an “uncontrollable need” to use smartphones is on the rise among young people. Out of 3000 adults surveyed, 19% of those aged 18–29 showed signs of “moderate to severe problematic use” of their devices, compared with only 2.2 percent of those over the age of 30. The study came from an organization that has historically reported trends on tobacco, alcohol, and other addictive habits — and due to the increasing penetration of technology, it added use of electronic devices into the question pool.

The fact that digital devices have made it onto a survey related to addiction and mental health directly brings into question the value of these tools in the classroom. It’s no secret that smartphone distractions are a danger behind the wheel, with many states and provinces increasing the restrictions against texting and driving. But now that studies are linking phone use to addictive behavior — something that has already been labeled clinically in other countries — what place do smartphones really have in schools?

To ban or not to ban?

Many technology pundits and tech-savvy educators have sought not only to inject technology into the classroom, but to convince the consumers that it’s the solution — to equitable learning, engagement, participation, and to personalization. And while this strategy has its merits, it’s also much too early to determine its effectiveness.

The argument for outright banning technology in schools, on the other hand, is also flawed. A technology ban doesn’t consider how unrealistic an expectation it is in the hyper-connected world we now live. This approach also doesn’t help young people, who are already more problematic phone users, improve their behavior or learn how to become less dependent upon their devices when they are not at school.

Students get the short end

Students today are traversing a challenging new world not many of us understand. The landscape of the internet has transformed dramatically over just the last 10 years, becoming a place where people we will never meet have the capacity and ease to ruin a person’s life. The sheer prevalence of cyber-bullying makes one wonder why participate online at all, where there seems to be more hatefulness spread than any amount of positive and intellectual discussion. And as social media perpetuates a need to be liked and followed, it only creates a hazardous emotional ride for young people who feel like they don’t measure up.

Young students from grade school to university are now expected to have a vibrant digital presence in this often hostile space, while simultaneously using their devices effectively and efficiently for their work. The trouble is that, today, most of the internet is used for entertainment and media, and what’s worse is there’s an expectation that students should know, by the time they’ve moved on from senior prom, exactly how to be highly effective and critical users of the internet. It’s like putting people who want to be healthy and know how to work out into a gym, while surrounding them with a tantalizing buffet of their favorite treats. Someone is bound to crack.

The reality is, as revealed by the study and countless other cases, that as many as one in five young adults do crack. Will that figure rise? It’s certainly likely — and pushing technology into places it doesn’t really need to be may be what accelerates its rise.

What can educators do?

Technology, when used effectively, has insurmountable advantages — there’s no doubt there. It’s bridged the gap for individuals, who may otherwise not afford a computer, access to a world of knowledge. It’s afforded young adults in challenging situations the ability to learn without barriers and to access things once inaccessible. It’s made work easier to accomplish and (most often) more efficient. But it’s the darker side of the digital landscape that few want to admit is as big a problem as it’s become, and it’s time those capable of producing a change start acknowledging its flaws realistically.

Rather than ignore or undermine the damage tech overuse can do, or simply prohibit the tools students should be learning how to manage, educators need to acknowledge that technology addiction is real. They should understand that self-control is much easier said than done, and they should apply technology to be used in a way that doesn’t simply force its users to always be “on”. When homework, team projects, and even the classrooms themselves have become bound to a virtual existence — often because it’s easier — alternatively creating real, analog, and offline spaces for discussion and deeper thinking could be a good starting point.

While technology makes most things easier, it takes away from valuable learning experiences.

Encouraging student groups to meet after class in real life, rather than from behind their respective screens, will help them improve their social skills and ability to communicate more effectively in person. Applying technology in a positive way, like introducing students to mindfulness and meditation through easily accessible (and free) apps, may help reduce the anxiety and stress associated with life’s expectations.

Assigning actual paper books to be read and discussed may help improve their creative and cognitive thinking, and this habit will be valuable to their future work-life balance needs. Teaching students to unplug by using innovative platforms like Flipd can help students who are easily distracted, and usually permitted to feed those distractions, learn to focus their attention elsewhere. Encouraging students to step outside of their usual screens to meet with real mentors and experts, and to explore and question real life problems, will help them build character, empathy, and relationships.

Promoting balance to students in a meaningful way will teach them its importance — because the older they get, the harder a lesson that is to learn.

Technology can improve our lives significantly. But as a millennial who works from the comfort of my home, collaborating with remote teams using all the wonderfully powerful tools technology has to offer pales in comparison to a live meeting, where I can gauge my team’s reactions, dive deeper into problems and solutions, and feel the emotion of our discussions. It’s not that technology isn’t yet good enough to mimic these experiences, it’s that having these experiences is a necessary part of being human.

Whether for better or worse, teachers will be the change-makers in our technology-addicted world. My hope is for the better.

I’m the co-founder of Flipd, a learning tool that helps students unplug, and a researcher in productivity and engagement.

What Technology Addiction Means for Educators was originally published in Student Voices on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As this year (slowly and painfully) draws to a close, you might be thinking of the ways you can improve your life in 2017.

Whether it be to eat healthier, exercise more, spend less time online, or save more money, there’s a little fire that’s ignited inside you as the new year emerges — a symbolic fresh start — and you’ve already promised to kick old habits and bad vibes to the curb. But the likely story, as it is every other year, is that most of you won’t stick to your resolutions much past January.

The reason? You haven’t made way for sustainable lifestyle changes that you actually enjoy. Instead, you’ll end up working out for three weeks straight, buying expensive organic groceries you don’t know what to do with, and deleting all social apps from your phone until that one great party that needed to be posted.

Not unlike the president-elect, you’ll over-commit without being prepared.

Instead, you should be looking to these fun little hobbies that will help rid you of those bad habits.

1. Want to eat healthier? Learn to cook

If your goal is to eat healthier, you should pick up a cookbook and learn about food. Cooking for yourself isn’t about buying frozen chicken fingers and ramen noodles — if you learn about food and how to make it you’ll end up making healthier choices at the grocery store. It’s literally that simple.

One study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research found that people who cook most of their meals at home tend to eat healthier, almost unintentionally:

“They consume fewer carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat than those who cook less or not at all — even if they are not trying to lose weight.”
(study)

Understandably, cooking at home and planning meals can be time consuming — especially if you’re used to ordering in or grabbing take-out on your way home. Starting off by speaking with a nutritionist or taking a cooking class are good strategies to first figure out how to navigate the grocery store, your kitchen, or even restaurant menus.

Added bonus: once you have some knowledge about cooking healthier meals, you’ll also end up saving a lot of money.

2. Want to exercise more? Don’t go to a gym

Exercising at a gym requires an incredible amount of self-motivation, and it’s the reason why many of us will get a membership that goes mostly unused.

The solution: join a local studio instead. Cycling, kickboxing, boot camp, yoga — these often cost as much as a gym membership and are significantly more motivating to go to. Why? For starters, you don’t have to be responsible for the workout — you just have to show up. Your instructor or coach or sensei will push you from start to finish, and you don’t have to waste valuable brain power wondering how long to run, how many reps to do, or if it’s your turn on the rower yet.

Added bonus: you could pick up a hobby you end up becoming very good at or interested in, like practicing yoga or distance cycling.

3. Want to use social media less? Read a book

The hours we spend on the internet is often during our down time — in bed, on the commute, in front of the TV — moments that otherwise seem to be empty of things to do that we fill with mindless scrolling.

Sure, we can go and uninstall that one super distracting app, but chances are we’ll wind up thumbing our way through the next best distraction on the internet — and we all know there’s no shortage of those.

Instead, research a good book you want to read, get it, and then commit to reading it.

You don’t have to uninstall anything or boycott the internet, you just have to bring your book with you and be willing to crack it open in place of your social feeds during your down time. And if your book is good enough, you’ll want to read it instead of your Instagram. Scrolling pales in comparison to a killer plot twist or genius insight.

Added bonus: reading a book in bed in lieu of scrolling your social feeds makes for a much better sleep.

4. Want to achieve all of the above? Spend time outside

There’s nothing quite like a brisk stroll through the city, by the waterside, or down a hiking trail. Bad habits are often the result of laziness — that we do things because they’re easy and accessible (or avoid things because they’re not). But if you want to eat healthier, get more exercise, and spend less time online, going al fresco — according to this Harvard study — is an excellent way to achieve these goals and many other complementary benefits.

Walking, hiking, gardening, or even just finding a park bench to read your new book from are just some of the ways you can get outside and focus your attention elsewhere. Reserving time for the outdoors could even sync up with your newfound appreciation for food — you could go to farmer’s markets — or maybe your gym membership is replaced with the hiking trail in your backyard you haven’t touched in years.

Ultimately, whatever hobby you choose to adopt, adding an element of the outdoors is a great way to increase motivation and reduce laziness.

Enjoyed this piece? Please recommend and share.

Up next: Why You Should Form Hobbies over Habits.

4 hobbies that will lead to excellent habits was originally published in Human Output on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the whirlwind of the election, frenzied media, and a seemingly endless conversation over the future of our planet all condensed to the internet, staying focused is hard. I spent most of November 9th — a day that, politics aside, would have been like most others — glued to what was happening. After waking up to the first headline, I continued my day refreshing to see what the news was saying, what people were saying, what experts and celebrities and my family and friends were all saying.

I wanted to know, like everyone else, what the F was going on.

And, needless to say, I got nothing done.

But what felt like a day that stood still, a day where the entire world was tuned in and what many have expressed as a day they will never forget, has since passed.

It’s now the next day, and you’ve got shit to do.

Indeed, it’s not the time to be uninspired. You have exams to prep for, papers to turn in, and projects to finish. You have people to impress and expectations to exceed.

You don’t have time to waste. You have to keep moving forward.

You have workouts to crush, groceries to buy, and meals to make. You have friends to see, family members to call, and errands to run.

You have hobbies to do and interests to tend to. You have new skills to learn and a lifetime of achievements to make.

You have the rest of your days ahead of you, so don’t let the outcome of one day continue to pull you back.

Move away from the internet for as long as you can at a time, starting today. Is Facebook your poison? Uninstall it from your phone. Hide the news feed with this Chrome extension (it’s almost as good as deleting it) and forget about everything for a little while. If more apps fight for your attention, hide them all with Flipd.

Unplug from the noise. It’s time to focus on you. Whichever side you’re on, you owe it to yourself to look inward and onward.

Get outside, breathe some fresh, crisp air. Throw on your headphones and start moving in one direction as far as you can.

You don’t have to move quickly or toward a certain path.

You just have to move forward.

This post originally appeared on the Flipd Blog.

Post-election: Don’t be uninspired was originally published in Human Output on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’re anything like the 25 million people around the world that play Pokemon Go every day, you’ve experienced what it’s like to discover places you’ve never been before and to see things you didn’t know exist. It’s the basic draw of the game: to get out and explore.

But, if you’re anything like the 25 million people around the world playing Pokemon Go everyday, that also means that you’ve spent the last 50 days of your summer immersed in your phone.

Maybe it’s time you take a break — a vacation, perhaps?

Digital detox vacations are nothing new; as early as 2008 there were reports of a hotel in the Rocky Mountains that launched an electronic rehab getaway catering to BlackBerry addicts who would hand over their phones in exchange for a specialized resort package. Since then, we know how significantly the world has changed — like how smartphone “addiction” and overuse is no longer reserved for the work-a-holic, and how the lives of people of all ages have become deeply bound by a desire to always be connected.

So while an electronic rehab getaway may have seemed extreme in 2008, offline is now a luxury we all deserve (and many of us need). A break from the noise, the trending news, the constant stream of information, and even the pokestops — wouldn’t that be kind of wonderful?

But think even better: an Instagram-worthy getaway that leaves digital distractions forgotten, filled with activities that reignite a burnt out mind, and a personal photographer to capture the moments you’ll undoubtedly share later.

Enter Into The Tribe: a self-described digital detox vacation travel company that focuses on tailoring tech-free vacations and adventures in Europe. It’s a delightfully genius formula: take the wonderful experiences of European travel — tasting wine and cheese, biking through sprawling vineyards, meeting fellow travelers — and remove the pieces that don’t quite fit — touristy selfies, concerns of the internet, “back home”.

Into the Tribe has a clear and important purpose: to offer a place where its travelers can disconnect from their digital lives and reconnect with others and nature. Their focus is simply to take a slower pace, to unplug for your own sake, and to enjoy the uninterrupted company of those around you.

Unlike some digital detox camps and workshops focused on corporate team-building and analog gimmicks, Into the Tribe is designed for world travelers who are looking for a humbling getaway mixed with a bit of adventure and real social networking.

So if you enjoyed the better part of your summer exploring the world and making new friends through Pokemon Go, or you’re like me and want nothing more than to step away from Facebook trending news, then you just might seriously enjoy a vacation with the tribe.

Into The Tribe’s next trip is to Kea, Greece on September 17th. Prices begin at just $550 USD for 5 days and include accommodations, meals, and activities. Can’t make it so soon? They’re off to Arrabida, Portugal in October.

How to make your next vacation tech-free was originally published in Human Output on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To lovers and haters of Pokemon Go: Here’s why it’s what the world needed

This thoughtful piece puts a new spin on the argument over Pokemon Go and whether it’s a good use or a waste of time. By Alanna Harvey.

I’m Tired Of Fighting To Survive In The Jungle Of Modern Love

Dating in the digital era is a lot more about likes and planned text replies, than about spontaneity and honesty. Here’s one writer’s candid take on why this is a problem. By Cameron Chang.

Two Great Thursday Reads was originally published in Human Output on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Times are tough. Politics ringing through the media we consume each day, violence and unrest at a point higher than we’ve known in years, global distress and crises affecting countless children and families. We’re in a time when we’re so aware of what’s happening, that a person who may have never cared to watch the news or read the media now has barely an escape.

And then Pokemon Go launched.

It seems as though this game has eliminated these distractions — and with it the stress and anxiety caused by being so aware of all the unhappiness and fear and awful, awful things going on in the world. Pokemon Go has permitted tens of millions of people to be online, yet immersed in a community that doesn’t immediately remind them of the bad stuff —the opposite of what “being online” tends to do.

Ironically, for the first time in a long time, it seems as though a screen is being used to promote connection —that real live conversations are being had and friendships are being formed and kind strangers are emerging — in ways like never before.

Ironically, a screen is responsible for taking people outside, into parks often unused and barren, and out for long walks and bicycle rides through streets they’d never once before been on, discovering new places and untouched corners — people who may otherwise be sitting inside on their couches to scroll passively through feeds and watch another episode of their latest series.

Pokemon Go is making a world that seems so unhappy happier. It’s making a global community that often seems so separated together.

This is what the players are saying. And I believe it.

But I’m not a Pokemon Go player — far from it. Much of my time is spent researching humanity’s relationship with technology, particularly their smartphones, and writing and speaking about how to find balance. Walking through Central Park last week, I noticed so many faces buried in their screens and, unaware that it was because of Pokemon Go, I was judgemental. I was annoyed. I thought it was crazy how, on such a beautiful day in such a beautiful city, people were staring at their phones.

But after spending time learning about the game, and reading deeply into its community support, I’ve changed my mind. I understand how positive the game can be, how happy it’s made people.

Yet I just can’t stop wondering, Why now?

The times are tough. So tough that it’s never been more important for people to come together and form real connections and have meaningful conversations with one another. So tough and deeply troubling, yet always within our line of vision, that it can truly feel impossible to escape.

But not if you chose to unplug from it all. If you decided to unplug and read a book. If you decided to go offline and play some cards with your partner. To get your friends together for a game of charades. To go off for a walk through the woods. To ride a bicycle until you find a quiet spot to sit.

If Pokemon Go can make people happy and nice to each other and active, I have nothing wrong with it. But why is Pokemon Go epitomized as the only good excuse to be happy and nice to each other and active? As the only escape?

I have spent the better part of the past week looking for the common justification of playing Pokemon Go: it isn’t simply because it’s fun, or because it’s addictive (unlike most mobile gaming phenomenons that have taken the world over in recent years).

The reason players have justified playing this game in record-breaking capacity is because it gets them outside and meeting people. Here’s one player’s thoughtful comment after this article criticized the app as a giant waste of time and money:

The truth of the matter is that this game is getting more and more kids to go outside and spend time walking around, rather than sitting with their butts on a couch. It has helped me to be more active; I’m now out walking multiple times a day whereas in the past, I just didn’t have the motivation. It is also connecting people. I have met multiple people playing the game and had meaningful conversations with them, ones that I wouldn’t have had without the conversation starter that is Pokemon Go. Most of all, it makes people happy and nostalgic. What exactly is so wrong with that?

There are many, many other comments like this one. And they really make the game sound wonderful. A game — played on a smartphone, no less — that takes people “off of their butts” to go outside and to be nice to other people. There is indeed nothing wrong with that.

But I can’t help wonder, Why can’t we always be that way?

I’ve read others argue that Pokemon Go helps those with social anxieties break from their shells — that it’s made it much easier for them to meet new people and make new friends. This is groundbreaking.

But what if everyone was just that friendly always? What if nobody passed judgement on your interests or quirks, and that you could just be yourself?

I think what Pokemon Go has really done is expose a humanity that is dying to be connected in ways that social media and the digital world has failed us. People want real connections — to meet people IRL and to make friends and to be happy. We don’t want to sit around all day craving the validation of others through selfies and snaps and updates; we want to go for a walk and to say hello to each other and act like kids sometimes.

But we also want a good reason to — or, as that one player said, “the motivation.”

So here’s the motivation (of which the game has simply reminded you): Be active because it’s good for you. Go outside because it will make you feel happier. Be nice to others because they will be nice back and that, too, will make you feel happier. Have meaningful conversations with your friends because they value your opinion. Embrace your nostalgia and act like a kid because life is too short not to.

I think what Pokemon Go has really done is exposed a humanity that is dying to be connected in ways that social media and the digital world has failed us.

What I’ve learned is that Pokemon Go has reminded people that humans can and want be kind to others. That we want to make real friends and have meaningful connections with each other. That we would rather our technology be used to have fun and to be happy than for collecting likes and followers or promoting hate and negativity.

Pokemon Go has reminded people that stepping outside opens us up to our amazing world — a place that, despite all of the awful, awful things going on within it, there can be wonder and beauty and peace.

It’s reminded people that, if you’re unhappy, do something about it.

The point is that these sentiments earned from Pokemon Go shouldn’t end with this one game. While it may be the best motivation many have had in a long time to go for a walk or to be kind to strangers, a much better and more lasting motivation is because life is too fucking short not to.

So enjoy the game now, but don’t forget to be happy and nice to each other and active when you’re done.

Thanks for reading! Please recommend so more can enjoy it too.

I write and speak about tech-life balance in this blog. I also co-founded Flipd, where we develop technology products that, not unlike Pokemon Go, help you “get off your butt”.

To lovers and haters of Pokemon Go: Here’s why it’s what the world needed was originally published in Human Output on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Plop! My tray lands on the cafeteria table as I drop into a chair. I kick my backpack to the side and heave out a long sigh. “The week’s been so…long,” I moan to my friends. I swivel my head left and right for a response, but a wave of disappointment hits me. They’re all on their phones.

I repeat myself, louder this time. A few bored seconds of silence pass, until one friend mumbles, “Uh huh.” Her eyes are still glued to the glossy screen. The cone of silence envelopes us again.

I cease my attempts at conversation and stare at the cracked paint on the wall, mechanically forking rice and beans into my mouth. An uncomfortable feeling settles in my stomach, and I feel alone despite sitting at a packed table. Less than a minute passes before I too take out my phone to scroll through Facebook and play my 231st game of Temple Run. My finger slides up and down and my eyes travel only the minute distance across different points on the screen. The repetitive action dulls my worries and throws me into a (blissful?) stupor.

“I feel alone despite sitting at a packed table.”

Then, the bell rings. I’m jolted back to real life, but strangely, I feel empty inside. I can’t help but wonder why I’m doing something that doesn’t satisfy.

I’ve always nurtured an ambiguous relationship with my smartphone. When I received my first in sixth grade, I remember feeling exhilarated and proud because, finally, I could keep up with my friends who’d had phones since third grade. I remember poring over the teeny pixels while exploring the pre-downloaded apps, falling in love with Temple Run and Gmail. I remember downloading Minecraft during the Minecraft craze and locking myself in my room at night, crawling underneath my covers to kill pigs and build zombie-proof fortresses — so absorbed that I ignored my mother’s exasperated knocks and reminders to finish my homework.

Sure, I played on my phone a lot, but didn’t every first-world teen? That was the excuse I used through middle school. Besides, I could speed through my sparse homework in ten minutes and spend the next five hours curled up with my phone without feeling guilty.

But it seemed that upon entering prep school, my phone unsheathed its true colors as my worst enemy.

Need to research frog brains? Why not click on that cool article about mutated animals first? Finished the article? Guess you’ll have to return to your lab report — but wait! You have five new emails and ten notifications from Facebook! Better check those first…

I understand how addiction works — you try something, you like it, and you go back for more. And I know that phones have well outlived their original purpose of making calls, and are now our lifelines that hold everything. But what I’m uncertain of is why teenagers are most prone to theirs, and whether there’s some special property of smartphones that gives us such a bottomless appetite.

The Problem

In the Daily Mail article Constantly checking your mobile? Then you may be depressed author, Sophie Freedman, highlights some curious tidbits about a study by researchers at Baylor University: “Those who express feelings of shyness and bashfulness may be less likely to become dependent on their phones than their more extroverted counterparts,” she says.

Freedman goes on: “If you find yourself constantly fiddling with your phone and checking for updates, you may be trying to alter your mood. People who can’t put down their mobile phones are more prone to moodiness and temperamental behavior.”

It makes sense: in my experience, extroverts are friend magnets. Their smartphones are a one-man-band of selfie-taker, text-and-Facebook-messenger, and keep-up-with-friend-ers. But why then don’t extroverts prefer face-to-face communication over dispassionately typed words on a smudged screen? And what about the solitary students I’ve seen on the perimeter of the cafeteria, who huddle by themselves with a food tray in one hand and a phone in the other? Could it really be that introverts, who don’t talk much, don’t seek their phones for refuge?

Putting that thought on hold, I browsed through the Play Store and found an anti-smartphone app, Flipd. Certainly ironic, I thought.

I emailed the founder Alanna and requested an interview. She’s not a psychologist, nor does she design phones, but her app addressed my question perfectly. We scheduled a phone call for a few days later.

Alanna’s cheerful voice was animated when she brought up the Pomodoro Technique: “The idea is that you do thirty straight minutes of work, and then you take short breaks in intervals. If you take too short of a break, though, you’re just going to end up wanting to go back to whatever thing you were scrolling on.”

Could that be the problem with teenagers and phones — that we’re just mishandling our time? I already know the answer to that: the moment you’re dead set on finishing your homework in one go, and then you fizz out in a blink and turn to your phone for escape — yes. Our motivation dies a bit every second.

Alanna dug into her own experience as a former waitress for more insights. It seemed her biggest pet peeve was seeing people ignore her, their friends, or their significant other: “They’re staring at their phones with the screens lighting up their faces, and it’s just a really bad habit. A lot of people don’t tell their friends, ‘Hey, maybe you should get off your phone for dinner’ because it’s just so normal now, but I see it as problematic.”

This reminded me of a term I discovered earlier — phubbing, or ignoring people in favor of your phone. I chewed on this. Could I blame my phone overuse on society norms instead of on myself? I mean, since everyone around us is always on their phones, there’s nothing wrong with our imitation, is there? It’s a tempting scapegoat.

Could I blame my phone overuse on society norms instead of on myself?

Then we reached the heart of the conversation — social media. “You get a bunch of followers, lots of likes on your photos, and it makes you feel good. But the problem is that it’s very temporary. Social media and smartphones in general, you get this very temporary good feeling that goes away. And that’s why you keep going back.” Alanna compared this to video games — “You get this sense of intrinsic value, and then you lose it.”

Overall, I gathered that peer pressure and social media were the major fueling factors of teenage phone addiction. But my search was far from over.

Later that night, I read through a 2006 article titled Cellular Telephones: A New Addiction? Its author, Lauren LaPorta, is a psychiatrist and a writer for the Psychiatric Times. Though a decade old, her article acutely describes today’s culture: “We find ourselves in a society that is increasingly enslaved by the tools designed to free us and isolated by the technology designed to bring us closer together. Parallels have been made to everything from cigarette smoking and caffeine to obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, including pathological gambling.”

“We find ourselves in a society that is increasingly enslaved by the tools designed to free us and isolated by the technology designed to bring us closer together.”

But I thought — isn’t there a major distinction between these? Phone addiction is laughable in regular conversation. So many of us are guilty of it that it’s a novice vice, never taken seriously. In my life, in fact, I’ve only seen one advertisement bashing phone addiction — a texting and driving one. Meanwhile, the anti-drug and cigarette ads are everywhere — the woman with the voice box, the mouth with decayed teeth, the lifeless hand with a syringe on the floor — these are only fragments of their kind. We just don’t fear phones like we fear cigarette smoke, hallucinogens, and alcohol.

Is that the problem?

On a rudimentary level, phone addiction is just like any other addiction. “Individuals who are sensitive to the activation of reward circuitry (dopamine) or psychoactivation will be more likely to become addicted when exposed to an object with addictive potential,” Laporta emphasizes.

What the article doesn’t mention, though, is that dopamine levels peak in adolescence. People aren’t joking when they talk about teenage rebellion and teenagers’ inclination to risk-taking. Dopamine is a human’s frenemy. It’s why addiction feels awesome and awful at the same time.

“We just don’t fear phones like we fear cigarette smoke, hallucinogens, and alcohol. Is that the problem?”

At this point, I instinctively flinch away from my phone. Everyone lugs something around with them every day that not only distracts them, but may also inflict problems on their minds and bodies. We’re all just guinea pigs in this self-conducted experiment. Should I really be so intimate with my phone? I thought it over briefly.

But it’s just so very useful. I’d need more information before I’d decide to throw my phone into the junkyard.

Hard Facts

I decided to post a survey onto my “Class of 2016” Facebook group. I rarely post on Facebook, so I was nervous. Maybe everyone’s too lazy to answer my survey, I thought.

But I’d severely underestimated my peers (both in their helpfulness and their infatuation with Facebook). Over the next three days, my survey caught a lump sum of 85 responses — it was only a tenth of the freshmen, but it worked.

I then scrutinized rainbow-colored pie charts and confirmed that my peers are indeed very attached to their phones:

• 45% use their phones for over two hours daily
• half have ignored people in favor of their phones
• and 77% can’t readily give up their phones at the moment.

I also found an (expected) answer to why teenagers can’t leave their phones — social media reigned as first choice, while internet and text messaging trailed at a faraway second. But some stats caught me by surprise — I did not expect that over half of the grade had at one point remained unplugged for over a day. Huh.

Were these responses from phone addiction experts? Not necessarily, but since many took my survey minutes after I’d posted it, they either were already on their phones or had their phones in close proximity. Frequent Facebook users equals frequent phone users.

And with that, my search was coming to a close.

A Transformation

The waiter hovers impatiently over our heads, tapping his foot briskly on the floor while a fake smile coats his lips. After a couple of seconds we can no longer take the stress and blurt out the first order that comes to mind, and a swift hand whisks our menus away, and we’re left sitting at a bare table with nothing but each other for company.

My mom clears her throat. “So, do you think…” She trails off, unsure of what to say next. I’m bored. I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, swipe my password, and press the green Temple Run 2 icon on my home screen. The game loads. I immerse myself in swiping the screen left and right and up and down and tilting it here and there and everywhere. Occasionally, I catch snippets of my mom and dad’s conversation, but my mind is preoccupied with evil monkeys, power-ups, and gems.

“Lynne, shut off your phone,” my mom commands. I ignore her.

Don’t worry, that’s not what I took away from all of this. I wanted to demonstrate here what I’ve always done, to place it in stark contrast to my transformation.

I still use my smartphone — every single day. There’s a mountain of reasons teenagers are engrossed in their phones. One, we’re at a transition period between childhood and adulthood, a mess of hormones and strange moods, so we’re more likely to activate our brains’ reward centers consistently. Two, phones tinker with these reward hormones. Three, social media has an iron grip over our lives, and the internet and text messaging don’t fall far behind. Four, phone usage operates on peer pressure and conformity. Five, phones cure the terrible disease of boredom.

My reasons sure sound more like a list of excuses.

While my search started over teenage phone addiction, it morphed into a deep self-confrontation as to what I should do with my phone. I began to question whether to keep it or not, and this led to nights of confusion and clarity. I had answers to my original question, but like my phone, they didn’t satisfy.

It has made me realize that going cold turkey isn’t necessary — but, rather, I need to be more mindful and in control about the time I spend on my phone each day.

It has made me realize that I need to be more mindful and in control about the time I spend on my phone each day.

What I can be sure of, though, is that science is not a viable excuse for anything. Sure, there are lots of reasons teens are always on their phones, but there are also lots of reasons why murderers murder — it doesn’t mean they should do it! Instead of accepting that our phone usage is out of our control, we need to face this problem head-on.

We’re not androids. Maybe our phones are, but not us. We’re humans.

This piece originally appeared on the FlipdBlog and was a school paper written by the well-spoken ninth grader, Lynne Wang, from New York. Subscribe to read more personal stories about tech-life balance.

A 15 year old’s take on smartphone addiction was originally published in Be Yourself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.