What happened when 10 teenagers gave up their smartphones?

As part of a five-day digital detox, 10 Salford teenagers swapped their devices for basic phones that can only make calls and send messages. How did they do?

Will regularly spends more than eight hours a day staring at his smartphone.

When he was younger, he loved to ride his bike — now he’s 15, he spends most of his free time after college scrolling through TikTok videos.

Last week, Will logged 31 hours on social media apps alone. But for the next five days, he will not have access to social media.

“I’m worried about how I’m going to cope,” he says. “Now I’ll have to be sociable with my parents.”

Detox is part of a BBC project looking at the smartphone habits of young people – and Will is one of 10 students at Media City University Technical College who have agreed to trade in their phones for a basic Nokia handset.

Almost every aspect of students’ lives will be affected – they have grown up with smartphones and use the internet for everything. They mostly communicate on Snapchat or Facetime, use Google Maps instead of AZ, and are always streaming music on the go.

It will be a “real challenge,” says the college’s principal, Colin Grand, who is shutting down students’ devices for the duration of the experiment.

Ruby dreams of becoming an actor. She says she spends a lot of time on her phone and often ignores her parents while scrolling through TikTok.

In the middle of the experiment, I visit her family.

When she arrived, the 16-year-old was putting the finishing touches on her makeup before heading off to college.

Her father checks that she has her work uniform in her bag and then Ruby’s mother takes us to the tram station.

Ruby admits that taking a break from her smartphone has “opened up more conversations” with her parents – and her mum, Emma, ​​agrees that the detox is having a positive effect on her daughter’s behaviour.

“Ruby is pretty addicted to her phone, so it gives her a chance to see what it was like when I was a teenager,” says Emma.

“She’s talking more and going to bed earlier. It’s a good break.”

As we approach the barriers at the station, we can see that the tram is already leaving.

Usually, Ruby would check an app on her phone to find out when the next tram will arrive. Reading the timetables on the display board at a tram station is not something this generation does.

“Without a phone, I have no way of knowing,” she says.

As we wait for the next tram, Ruby tells me about her part-time job at a Nerf arcade. She works several times a week – but isn’t quite sure if she’ll have a shift later today, or how long it will last.

Her manager has given her the office phone number in case she needs to clarify her schedule – but she feels “a little nervous” about calling.

“It tells you in the app what change it’s making, but I don’t know that right now,” Ruby explains. “I never call it work, ever.”

She pays for her tram ticket – her bank card is rarely used without access to her smartphone wallet – and we set off on the hour-long journey.

For some of the teenagers, giving up their smartphone has been really difficult.

After just 27 hours, 14-year-old Charlie dropped out of school and demanded his device back.

“I knew my phone was in the same building,” he says, but not knowing if someone was trying to contact him and not being able to get online was “really stressful.”

Another thing that seems to be stressing everyone out is their Snapstreak status — a grand total of how many days they’ve Snapchatted each other.

Some students admit they’re so worried about losing their streak — which can sometimes last more than 1,000 days in a row — they’ve asked friends to log into their accounts and keep them going during the detox.

Like Charlie, other students taking part in the experiment admit to fearing loss, but most say they are surprised by how liberating they find the experience.

Some are sleeping better, they say, while others feel they’ve been more productive without their phones.

“I feel like I’m learning things and engaging more — I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything,” says Grace, 15.

Right after school, on the first day of the experiment, she and her friends went shopping for plastic jewelry to “enhance” her brick phone.

Showing it to me as we chat, Grace says the shopping trip was a good distraction from thinking about her locked phone – and it had another unexpected benefit.

“It was really peaceful,” she says. “I really liked it because it gave me back my creative flow.

“I just went home, I was drawing things and painting. It helped me start finding the things I love again.”

In February, the government published new guidelines to ban students from using phones during the school day.

But a group of cross-party MPs went a step further in May, saying a blanket ban on smartphones for all under-16s – not just at school – should be brought in by whoever wins the general election.

In a survey of 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds, carried out by BBC Radio 5 Live and BBCBitesize, young people were asked about various aspects of life – including their mental health and their smartphone habits.

of survey findings, conducted by survey company Survationsuggest:

• 23% agree that smartphones should be banned for under 16s
• 35% think social media should be banned for under 16s
• 50% say that not having a smartphone on them makes them feel anxious. Last year, this figure was slightly higher (56%)

Simply participating in this digital detox has set these teenagers apart from their contemporaries. In the BBC survey, 74% of young people surveyed said they would not consider replacing their smartphone with a basic device.

After five long days, it’s time for students to reunite with their smartphones.

Excitement levels are high as a teacher heads to the college vault to retrieve them. Some students scream in anticipation.

As soon as they’ve turned their phones back on, teenagers are glued to their screens – scrolling and catching up on group chats.

But most say that after participating in the detox, they would like to find ways to limit screen time.

“It made me realize how much time I’ve been spending on social media and realize I need to cut back on it and get out more,” admits Will. “I’ll try to use less TikTok, that’s for sure.”

He admits that it has been difficult and he especially missed listening to music. But time away from his phone has allowed Will to rekindle his passion for cycling – something he’s determined to pursue instead of spending endless hours commuting.

“Eight hours a day is just crazy,” he says.