MESA COUNTY, Colo. (KJCT) – On average, kids spend about nine hours on their phones during the day and five of those hours on social media.

Since the early 1990s, the world has been slowly absorbed by technology. Smartphones provide access to almost everything with the press of a button.

Over the past decade, the negative effects of smartphones on youth mental health have increased, even in Mesa County.

“I often feel like with social media I’m not as present as I should be,” said Maddox Rewold, a Palisade High School student. “I’m constantly looking at other people’s standards and posts, and I’m really not living my own life.”

“I was constantly relying on my phone. I was always there 24/7,” said Palisade High School student Kolhter Howard. “I didn’t talk to my family. I was just sitting there on my phone and not really being productive with my time.

These effects are also visible at the district and state level.

“Some of the things that are happening are harmful distractions, intimidation and other threats. All of this harms the learning environment,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.

“The research really shows that adolescents in general, but particularly elementary through middle school students, are just not able to regulate themselves as well,” said Dr. Brian Hill, District 51 superintendent. “It has an impact on their sleep, it impacts their attention in class – the time they actually spend with their friends and socializing.”

Hali Nurnberg, a licensed counselor at the Counseling and Education Center, said it also has an impact on parents.

“Parents are feeling really isolated at the moment. They also hold themselves, because of social media, to higher standards of perfectionism and parenting,” she said. “They’re juggling work, raising kids, balancing life, how to pay the bills, how to put groceries on the table, and all the things they do. And the phone becomes a dissociative distraction technique that interferes with their ability to actually have time.

District 51, with assistance from the Western Colorado Community Foundation and the Attorney General’s Office, implemented a new smartphone policy to combat this growing problem.

“Our campaign slogan is “More social, less media”. So we’re trying to find a way to reduce that amount of social media, use technology and increase social interactions,” Hill said. “All middle and high school classrooms have some sort of storage device, it could be a box to hold the phones, we have four schools that use Yonder pouches that lock the phones into the pouch.”

These strategies went into effect in fall 2024 and have already received praise from students.

“People are now starting to use their phones a lot less,” Howard said. “They’re trying to step back and talk to people more often without using social media, and I think that’s been really helpful for everyone.”

There are also some who don’t have the option to use their phone as a tool rather than entertainment.

“It’s definitely a classroom resource when there aren’t enough calculators to go around, you have your phone when you need research tools that aren’t accessible to Chromebooks, your phones are d “Great tools for that,” Rewold said.

Limited use in schools has also spilled over into their lives outside of school.

“A lot of times I just don’t see my phone, it sounds crazy, but I now use it as a form of communication rather than a form of entertainment,” Rewold said.

District 51 doesn’t want the battle to end there.

“We want to make sure that we also educate children along the way.” Because when they are adults, they will be alone, will they be able to be responsible with these devices? ” Hill said.

“They’re working on a playbook here. I want to make sure we get this message out there and other school districts can follow suit,” Wesier said.

“The more we can build strong connections within our community, the healthier we will be as individuals, as families and as a society,” Nurnberg said.

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