Before I start, I would like to ask you a question reader. A month has passed since New Years, and if you created them, how many of your New Years Resolutions did you end up keeping? If you didn’t follow through with any, you’re not alone. According to the Fisher College of Business, only 9% of Resolution-making Americans complete them. This study then stated that 23% of people quit after just the first week, and 43% quit by the end of January.

Heritage High School has made its own New Years Resolution in the form of our new cellphone policy. Students are now required to leave their phones in calculator holders, and remove all earbuds or headphones during instruction (this rule was already in place in some classrooms, but became a schoolwide policy at the beginning of the second semester).

You will hear self-help influencers on sites like YouTube and Tik Tok constantly reiterate that the time needed to change a habit is a mere 21 days. Behavioral Psychologist James Clear, as well as the National Institute of Health, tell a different story, saying it takes 66-70 days for the human brain and body to adjust to lifestyle changes. We, as a school, are now around two weeks into the policy at the start of February. According to all evidence shown, we should have reverted back to our old ways by now, right? Which begs the questions: 1- Why haven’t we? and 2- Will we soon?

One reason our school has not yet abandoned forming our newest habit could be because we’re all forming it together. I know that sound obvious… and it is. Studies have shown that it is easier to keep resolutions in a group than it is to keep them alone. Just like most things in life, people are more willing to tolerate something if others tolerate it with them. A self-help site called The Power of Us posted an article, stating how in 2022, runners who ran as a group were reportedly 78% more active than those who ran solo.

This does not mean this system is perfect, however. I myself have run into multiple very large groups of cellphone users in the hallway during instruction. Could they simply all be in study hall, and they decided to meet up during their free time? Unlikely, but not impossible. But there has also been, without fail, at least one person on their phone in every bathroom I’ve gone into since the policy began.

In the end, only time will tell if the cellphone policy stays in effect, or is forgotten to the old way of doing thing. Personally I hold no opinion on either side.