Nervous and tense, digging through your pockets, you finally manage to get your phone out. You frantically swipe the lock screen and check your messages. What do you see? “LOL.”
The “Get Off Challenge” promoted on Cal State University Long Beach campus encourages students to reduce the usage and reliance of smartphones.
“It’s very difficult with a lot happening since you’ve got to communicate with friends and check emails,” Nestor Gil, a senior business management student, said when asked if he would accept the challenge.
Fliers for the challenge placed around campus depict various individuals grimacing and displays the challenge’s website.
The website has an illustrated guide that demonstrates the process of how to successfully survive without constant phone usage.
According to the guide, participants will need the following to participate in the challenge: a phone, a friend, tissues, anti-anxiety pills, God and a leisure activity in order to “release your phone’s grip on your daily life.”
The guide illustrates other forms of communication besides the use of a phone. These include sending smoke signals of “LOL” and sign language, depicted as flipping someone off.
The guide suggests speedo stuffing and using one’s phone as a murder weapon as alternative uses for one’s cell phone. Other suggestions include using it as a Frisbee or a coaster.
Along with the illustrated guide, a questionnaire on the website asks participants 10 questions in order to determine whether viewers are “true addicts.” After the quiz, participants are prescribed a length of time to abstain from phone usage. This can range from two to 48 hours.
One of the questions asks, “What is your policy for phone use while driving?” and then prompts respondents with a choice such as, “Sorry what did you say? I was tweeting about traffic?”
Anthony Meyers, a freshman digital art major, said that excessive cell phone usage affects interpersonal communication.
“I see that pretty much all the time even when I’m hanging out with friends,” Meyers said. “I’m like right there; just talk to me. Jesus.”
As of 2013, 91 percent of all people on Earth have a phone, and 56 percent of those own a smart phone, according to statistics from Super Monitoring.
The average college student uses a smartphone for about nine hours each day – longer than many of those students spend sleeping, according to the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.
The Get Off Challenge website states no CSULB affiliation or contact information. Besides the questionnaire and illustrative guide, the only information on the website is an address for the CSULB bookstore. CSULB Student Life and Development approved the posting of the flyers on campus.