The alarm on my phone, the awful default alarm noise that comes on almost all smartphone devices, tears the peacefulness of a fall morning to shreds as it serves its purpose undeniably, whilst leaving the anxious shrill echoing in my head.  Unplugging the phone, I make a mental note to grab the charger before I leave in an hour and a half. On my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I browse for a playlist before picking the same one I listen to every morning, because I’m eager to check my snapchats. I haven’t been awake for more than five minutes; each of the five filled with a focus on one thing only, a life behind a screen. My day has been customized with songs I need this device to access, waking up in the morning depends on this device’s battery life, and we all know someone who’s life strictly on social media has no correlation with their reality.

I use myself as an example because I had always considered my phone activity to be low, but at the beginning of summer, the device I’d interacted with at least once every hour of my awake time was dropped in dear old Veterans Pond. For about a week, I mourned the loss of my Snapchat streaks and sulked over all the memes I was missing in my Instagram groupchat before I began to recognize how much time I’d been spending on my phone. My entertainment, communication with my friends, and oftentimes schoolwork would all depend on my phone. Of course, summer made it easy to ignore the school part, but I noticed how tired I was of only getting sent memes or Snap streaks as opposed to actual progressive interaction with people I cared about, even if it’s just a little bit.

Oftentimes, I consider what a pie chart of all the things I stress about as a highschooler would look like. Anything phone related seems like it should be located in a ‘miscellaneous’ section, but if the chart were to take into consideration how often I touch my back pocket and feel a wave of anxiety as it’s not there; my eyes flick up to the battery and see it in the red; I forget a charger at home, get a notification I can’t help but to answer, or how bored I get when I forget a pair of headphones, my phone would get a section to itself.

I’m not saying I’m against cellphones. Throughout my time not having a phone, I’ve encountered a number of obstacles and extra hoops I had to jump through. That extra work, however, is nothing compared to the constant subconscious awareness I have on this device. I understand the necessities and luxuries a smartphone offers, but there will be a time that you come to recognize the root of your own personal clutter. For me, that was my smartphone. Headspace is important for your health AND education. How much of your headspace does your cell phone take up?