Mixed signals about cell phone use in classrooms

By Jay Carroll Staff Writer At the beginning of each school year, students go to their classes for the first time to meet their new teachers and receive a syllabus. At this time, students are told each teacher’s cell phone policy – some lackadaisical and others extremely strict. Cell phones are a part of students’ lives. If you walk through the halls each passing period, you will see students navigating seas of people while trying to text friends or look at a social media site. I am guilty of doing the same. When a teacher bans use of phones in that class for the whole year, they are inviting students to try to use their…

Today’s tech

By Sarah Police Staff Writer Let’s go back to the time when kids went outside to play for the love of the game. They would play for hours and hours without keeping score- just playing with each other and having fun. This generation, children are helping Tiny Wings soar the sky and assisting Phineas and Ferb with their summer shenanigans. Technology has been on the rise in the past couple of years and some people are even saying that this is the “technology decade.” But is all of this action with Angry Birds good for you? This advancement has led to many good things. Back in the 1980s and 90s computers took up full rooms…

Laptops become a backpack necessity

Why tediously record notes on paper when you can type them? Is it necessary to email work to someone when you can just give them your flash drive? And why use the dictionaries in your English class when Google operates in a matter of seconds? While NTH@C emphasizes the use of technology to as paramount, CHS also inhibits an increasing reliance on Macs and smartphones. Freshman year, I had maybe one or two teachers who weren’t finicky about electronics-the others were not afraid to keep it for the rest of the day, maybe even send it to the office. My junior year has blessed me with the privilege of having a schedule that only consists with…

Recycling Club offers to dispose of old cell phones

Kelly Stewart Staff Writer Any student wishing to get rid of an old cell phone can give them to the recycling club, where they can dispose of them in an environmentally-friendly way. The CHS Recycling Club can make sure that cell phones are recycled properly. According to NPR, Americans trash about 130 million cell phones every year. This wastes energy and money and adds to the growing amounts of trash, and these consequences could be avoided if more people chose to recycle their cell phones. So if you dig up an old cell phone choose to recycle it, and take it to Mr. Melville’s room, C123.

Teens’ “screen time” continues to rise

Zeb White Assistant Business Manager  Growing up, your parents may have warned you not to spend too much time watching TV. However, you probably now spend hours of their free time texting, using social networks like Facebook, and playing video games as a teenager. Some experts say that these newer activities may pose just as many risks as watching too much TV. A recent Associated Press poll found that one-third of college students use computers, cell phones or gaming consoles for six or more hours daily. A Kaiser Family Foundation study published in January found that total media use among 8- to 18-year-olds, including TV, music, computers, video games, print and movies has increased from…

Facebook mobile the new way to communicate

By Rebecca Fowler Staff Writer Facebook is huge. People have become so attached to the cite that it has been made accessible on many phones, namely the iPhone with its Facebook app. However, many people do not realize that Facebook Mobile is not just for iPhones, nor is it only usable on phones with internet capabilities. In fact, phones with only simple plans can use Facebook Mobile for free. How? Through text messaging. With FB Mobile, you can update your status, message, search, get cell numbers, browse events, post on walls and add friends. The service can be activated when you click on the word “mobile” in the lower right hand corner of your Facebook…

Marketing schemes are overrated…

As I walked in to the AT&T store this past Saturday in hopes of renewing my contract, and upgrading to a phone from this century, it wasn’t long before my hopes were crushed. Although I came in to by the ever popular, Blackberry Bold, I ended up walking out with my old school Nokia cell phone that I had been using for the past two years. Why? An overrated marketing scheme. According to the AT&T salesman and customer service as well, any “smart phone” such as the Blackberry’s, the iPhone, and many of the other sleek phones,require customers to sign up for the Data Plan that charges you up to $30 every month to access…

Lock up! How careless students are making theft easy

Ellen Cameron Staff Writer You can’t find it. Is it in your locker? Your car? Did you leave it at home? You search, hoping you’ll find it, because even though you know it was just there, you hope you’re just delusional, because “temporarily misplaced” is a lot easier to deal with than “stolen”. The Sidekick staff member Wren Culp knows the feeling all too well. He didn’t have time to take his backpack to his locker before fifth period, so he left it outside C108, his Latin class. When he went to retrieve his backpack and found the backpack itself in another A-Hall, its contents stolen. “I’d heard of people getting robbed,” Culp said. “Some…