A week without phones causes students to think about their technology use.

The Seventh Grade Academy engineered a no-technology experiment that started on Monday, February 1 and ended Friday, February 5. Students were not even able to use technology for academic purposes.

“I think everyone had a lot of fun except for the first two days,” said seventh grader Quinn Hall.

While the seventh graders may not have had a lot of fun the first two days, on Wednesday, “everybody started playing games, bringing in cards, [and] making paper footballs,” Hall said.

Hall also said that the class knew it was coming before the project launch. “My thoughts were all over the place,” he said. “[Then] we kind of got the idea that it was going to happen at the project reveal, because the subject was technology.”

According to Hall, the students turned in their devices in the morning, and if they were late they would go directly to the teacher they were to turn their devices into before attending class.

Seventh Grade History teacher Mr. Jeffrey Carroll said that the seventh grade parents were very supportive of the experiment.

Seventh Grade English teacher Mr. Leo Kindon said that the teachers “felt that [the students] spent too much time with technology things when they could be doing things which are educational.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with games, but the amount of time spent with a phone in your hand,” Kindon said. “We just felt it was too much.”

Kindon started noticing a change from that with this experiment.

“I think it made people aware of how much they’re playing with things, instead of doing other things,” Kindon said.

After watching the students evolve over the course of the week, Kindon said that what the students were now doing “was different,” and asked, “Where was that earlier in the year?”