Lenape High School Principal Tony Cattani and student Radhika Soni hand out certificates to students who completed last year’s Phone Detox Challenge by giving up their cell phones for a five days during classes. – Photo by Max Hann.
Earlier this year, Radhika Soni,
A Lenape Regional High School sophomore is urging her peers to be take action against the negative impacts of social media and screen time in the classroom.
With the support of Lenape Principal Tony Cattani, Radhika Soni initiated a pilot program last year called the Phone Detox Challenge. For five days, students dropped their phones at the school’s main office in the morning and retrieved them at the end of classes.
About 100 Lenape students did just that. The challenge began with a form initially sent out to all students to determine interest in the high-school project. The involved students were required to complete applications with their ideas for a presentation on a topic of their choice. Soni was one of the students selected by Cattani.
The students were then asked to share their presentations with a room full of educators. Soni’s topic was the negative impact of social media in the classroom.
“I knew (social media) could be a danger for many teenagers and even young kids,” she explained. “When I started reading more articles about it, I just became really interested in the topic and realized that this could help out my community.”
So many teachers observed her presentation, she needed to conduct more than one session.
“I thought it would be around 15 to 20 teachers attending my session,” Soni recalled. “But Mr. Cattani told me there would be around 80 teachers attending, therefore I had to conduct three separate sessions.”
In addition to first-hand experience with daily student cell phone usage at Lenape, Soni’s research led her to a better understanding of dopamine, as well as social media addiction.
“Social media uses various tactics like, notifications, likes and comments just to keep teenagers engaged,” she observed. “The more I read, the more interested I became in this topic.”
Soni’s was commended by teachers who attended her sessions for bringing attention to teen cell phone issues. As a follow-up to the success of her passion project, she then presented the Phone Detox Challenge pilot program. With the support of Cattani and the school’s main office staff, Soni initiated the program in her freshman year.
“There would be 10 students a week, and on Monday morning, they would drop off their phone at the main office,” she recalled. “The secretary would then put the phone in a bag and keep it at her desk for the day. At the end of the day, students would pick their phone up, and if they completed this the whole week, then on the final day they receive a certificate of completion.”
Of the 100 students who completed the challenge in its first year, 50% percent were surveyed about their experience.
“The students said they were more concentrated, felt a stronger connection with their friends, and more productive,” Soni noted.
Lenape High will kick off the second Phone Detox Challenge this fall.
“In the future, I hope that we can expand to many other schools and teach students the negative impacts of social media,” Soni remarked. “The thing is, we’re not trying to ban social media, we’re just helping students limit their usage during school, because there are several positives that can come from social media. But sometimes teens just don’t (regulate their phone usage).
“Our goal is just to help as many teenagers as we can across all schools.”
