Managing Your Relationship With Your Cellphone is a 30 minute lesson plan intended for high school students, but could work with any digitally dependent group. A step by step lesson plan is available here http://www.slideshare.net/lazarsch/yourcellphonerelationship The lesson was originally delivered during a 40 minute "Advisory" or "Homeroom" period at Wauwatosa West High School. The purpose is to engage students in a conversation about their relationship with their cellphone and how smartphone use may both encourage and discourage the creation of meaningful relationships with their peers, family and educational community. In either case, it is a tool that can - if not monitored - can be potentially damaging and distracting to the academic and social setting of the high school environment.

1. Managing Your
Relationship With Your
Cellphone

2. Learning Targets
1. I will examine how I use my cell phone.
2. I will identify skills to help others and myself
manage cell phone use.
3. I will learn about nomophobia.
4. I will consider the impact of my cell phone
use on myself and others.
5. I will evaluate the impact of cell phones on
my academics.

3. Raise your hand if you . . . .
1. . . have a cell phone?
2. . . have a smartphone?
3. . . use your phone to send text messages or check email.
4. . . use your phone to check Twitter?
5. . . use your phone to check Facebook?
6. . . use your phone to check Snapchat?
7. . . use your phone as an alarm clock?
8. . . check your phone for messages while you are sleeping

4. How often do you do the following?
1. Use my phone to make a phone call.
2. Check my phone for messages?
3. Send or receive a text message?
4. Send or receive an email?
5. Go to a social networking site?
Several times an hour
Once an hour
Several times a day
Once a day
Several times a week

6. Let’s talk!
1. The video is named, “I forgot my phone.”
a. Is this an appropriate title? Explain.
1. Artists often use hyperbole - or exaggeration - to
make their point.
a. What point or message is the director making?
1. Some students said it is NOT exaggerated but
realistically shows how people use cell phones.
a. What do you think?

7. Let’s talk!
1. Pick ONE memorable scene from the video.
a. As a group decide how the main character
SHOULD have called her friends out on
their behavior.
b. What techniques do you and your friends
use to prevent these types of situations?
Identify ONE way and be prepared to share
with the group.

8. Let’s talk!
1. The director - who is also the main
character - seems to be arguing that our
use of cellphone are making us LESS
connected with people around us.
a. What do you think? Do our cellphones
make us MORE connected or LESS
connected?

9. Do you have Nomophobia?

10. Do you have Nomophobia?
1. Have you ever gone somewhere and needed to go back
home because you realized you forgot your cell phone?
2. Can you touch your phone just by reaching out your
hand right now?
3. Do you leave your phone turned on at night? (Putting it
on silent doesn’t count…)
4. Is your smartphone the first thing you check after
waking up in the morning?

11. Do you have Nomophobia?
5. Do you get your phone out in the bathroom?
6. Do you send more than 20 text messages a day?Does
your heart skip a “happy beat” every time you get a new
message or notification?
7. When you have an unread message or any other
notification on your phone but could not check it
somehow, you are not able to concentrate on your
work?
8. Do you imagine that your phone is ringing in your
pocket, but when you check, it is not?

12. There’s
an APP
for that!
Tracks your
cell phone
use and
habits.
And, it is
FREE!

13. Some Research
More than 90% of Americans ages 18 to 29
sleep with a cellphone on or next to their bed.
People who text are 42% more likely to sleep
with their phones than those who don't text.
(A 2010 Pew Research Center study of more than 2,000 adults.)

14. Some Research
Female college students spend an average of
10 hours a day on their cell phones.
Male students report spending nearly eight.
60 percent of study participants think they may
be addicted to their cell phones.
o (Journal of Behavioral Addictions. 2014)

15. Some Research
Using Facebook, Twitter and texting while
studying are negatively associated with GPA.
The more you are distracted by social media,
the lower your GPA.
Emailing while studying was positively
associated.
(A Decade of Distraction? How Multitasking Affects Student Outcomes, 2011)

16. Look Up or Can We
Autocorrect Humanity?
CHALLENGE STUDENT CHOICE

17. Can we autocorrect humanity?(3:57)

18. Look Up (4:57 min)

19. Conclusions
1. What is your relationship with technology and your cell
phone? Is it healthy or unhealthy?
2. What do we think about how we use cell phones?
3. Do cell phones help our relationships or hurt them?
4. If cell phones maybe hurting our relationships with
people, how are cell phones hurting our relationship
with learning?
5. How do cell phones impact our effectiveness as
students?

20. Be here and now.(1:00 min)