Phone Addiction by Selvedin

Phone Addiction by Selvedin - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

A piece of advice that I would give my past self would be "Limit your phone usage, otherwise you'll regret it later".

Phone usage takes up a huge part of many lives, mine included. I feel that once you start using a phone or any kind of electronic device, you get hooked and miss out on so many things in life. With the addition of addictive apps like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and more, their short video content fires dopamine receptors and negatively affects physical and mental health.

A study by Harmony Healthcare IT mentioned that Gen Z spends an average of 6 Hours and 27 Minutes per day on their phones. Now this may not seem like a lot, it looks like a small number, so it’s not that bad… but what if I were to tell you that is ¼ of your day? You’re already sleeping for ⅓ of the day, now you’re going to get rid of another ¼? If that doesn’t do it for you, it equates to about 8 whole days in a month. Maybe it’s still not clicking, it would be 3 whole months of the year spent on your phone. Maybe it still sounds like a small number, let's say you live to 100, you would be spending 25 out of 100 years on your phone.

This is a huge amount of time to be spending on your phone, imagine all the other things you could have done with that time? You could have gotten another degree in college, travelled the world, spent time with your family, and you would still have extra time.