Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

Buzz

Buzz

Buzz

She leaned over to check her messages again. Of course, the group chat was going crazy - they always were. Not that that was bad. Maybe just a little annoying when she was trying to just get her homework done.

She shook her head with a sigh and went back to work. She added and subtracted, squared and cubed, anything and everything required of her for school the next day.

Buzz

Instead of checking the messages, she turned the phone screen-down to avoid the flashing light that accompanied every buzz. That would make it easier, she decided, to ignore the distraction.

Buzz

Buzz

She frustratedly picked the phone back up and opened her messages. It was hard to not get annoyed, because she was trying to get her work done. Once all of the messages were read and responded to, she stood up and walked to the opposite side of her bedroom, where she set the phone down on her dresser. With that, she turned around and sat back down at her desk to resume her homework.

Buzz

Buzz

Buzz

Just ignore it. It'll go away. It'll stop.

She shook her head once more and covered her ears. Maybe that would make it easier.

Buzz

Buzz

Buzz

You're being dramatic. Just ignore it. It isn't that hard.

The thing was, it WAS that hard. Maybe she couldn't hear it, necessarily, but she could feel the buzzing. She could hear the sound that it made against the wood, harsh and sudden and fast. She could feel the pent up frustration ready to pour out of her, like the steam from a kettle left too long on the stove.

Are you really going to get that frustrated over your friends messaging you?

Yes. No. Yes. No. Maybe? Was that the problem at all?

With her head in her hands, she sat back and just existed. She just was there, amidst all of the life and the space and the materials around her, and she just was there. She breathed, in and out, deeply and down to her stomach. When she stood up to check her phone again, she opened her messages.

84 missed messages in seven minutes. All from 3 different group chats. All asking why she wasn't responding.

She wasn't responding because she was WORKING. But they didn't know that. But the last time she tried to tell them that, they all just dismissed her.

Why don't you just silence the messages? It isn't that hard.

But she didn't want to be kept out of the loop. So she didn't do anything.

Instead of going back to finish her homework, she turned her attention to all of the other notifications that took the moment to surge down on her like a waterfall - Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, everything at all times, every game and every other app that could possibly send her a notification.

After she checked every notification, she went back to her Instagram and let it reach out its holographic hand and gently wrap around her mind.

Just five minutes, she told herself.

She scrolled and scrolled. She needed the laughs, she told herself. She needed the tears. She needed the distraction after everything. She felt lighter while she scrolled.

Eventually, she noticed that her room was darker. Her eyes were heavier. She ignored it, of course, because she felt better while she was scrolling. But something was nagging at her.

She looked up into the corner of the little screen.

9:42PM.

She threw her phone in shock. She had looked at her notifications at 6:20! She had had three hours to finish her homework, every assignment due the next day, and now she had no time!

She couldn't believe it.

She went back to her desk, head in one hand, and continued on every assignment, but she couldn't focus. The assignments weren't as simple as a five-second video or a quick scroll through the questions because she didn't like them. They required her brain, but the phone had already taken its clawed grip deeper into her mind, into every nook and cranny, until she could only think of her phone.

By the time she finally was able to finish, it was past midnight. She only had five hours for sleep before she had to wake up for school. That wasn't enough time at all.

Of course, she knew that she should have gone to sleep. She should have soaked up as many hours as she could have.

But she didn't.

She reached back over the bed for her phone and the blue light filled the dark room. She let herself get lost again until her alarm clock blared at her at 5:00AM.

With a shake of her head, she reached over to press the snooze button and missed by at least a foot. She knocked over her stack of books instead, which caused a crash that jolted her systems awake.

She stood at the foot of her bed and stared at the floor. This was the third night in a row that she had stayed up all night without sleep. She didn't finish her homework. She checked her screentime, and it was well over the suggested time - about 8 hours, if she could even read it right.

"Time for another day," she said. At least the phone wasn't buzzing anymore, for the time being.

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According to "https://nexusteenacademy.com/phone-addiction-statistics/", teens aged 13-17 spend over 7 hours a day on their phones. Teens who use their phones in bed are twice as likely to experience poor sleep, teen anxiety, and emotional dysregulation. Burnout, mood swings, and exhaustion are all being caused by overtime on the phone by teenagers who already experience additional stress from school, work, or family experiences.

Addiction is not just from a substance. It can come from anything that can become a forefront to the mind, something that affects your mind and the development of it. Phones, work, substances, any of these can become an addiction, and all can be hard to quit if the addiction becomes too strong.