The bell rings, students leave their classrooms, and begin to chatter in the hallway.

Phone in hand, sophomore Jaylen Ross makes his way out of class. The hallways get crowded, and Jaylen begins to stand in the middle of the hallway with his phone while he waits for the crowd to dissipate.

What does he do with that single second of free time he has before he has to move? Jaylen pulls out his phone and opens a game while he waits.

What about while he has a free period and sits in his study hall? He continues to use his phone and play games. Students will use their free time to play mobile games like Block Blast, Hexa-sort, Subway Surfers,etc.

“When I don’t have anything to do, I like playing it in school,” said sophomore Kendall Watkins, who is addicted to playing Hexa-sort in school, a game where players stack hexagons.

Watkins is not alone in playing mobile games as lots of students play games on their phones in school. Mobile games are played frequently throughout school whether students have study hall, free time at lunch, or are just walking in the hallway.

Most students use mobile games on their smartphones to relieve boredom from school, calm their stress, or just have something to do on their phone.

Sophomore Hailey Shabon says she’s addicted to playing the game Hexa-sort on her phone because it relieves anxiety. She started playing about four days ago and is already on Level 28, and when asked how long she plays it for, she answered, “I play probably an hour of it per school day.”

When does she even find the time to play Hexa-sort on her phone? She said she plays the game in the 20 minutes she has before the first period starts and in study hall when she has no work to complete. Another sophomore, Jessica Carlson, says she plays the game Block Blast, which has taken over Spring-Ford.

“I like to use it more in school because it doesn’t use Wi-Fi,” Carlson said.

Every student has to deal with the Wi-Fi issue in the 10-12 Building, and when they don’t have Wi-Fi for TikTok they ultimately decide to play mobile games on their phones like Block Blast, Hexa-sort, etc.

On the other hand, Susan Hammond, a biology teacher at Spring-Ford High School claims she sees her study hall students play games on their phones quite often.

“I see it all the time,” says Hammond, “I have many students and they are always playing.”

Has mobile games taken over study halls and relieved kids of boredom?

“I don’t know what they play, but I know they’re playing,” says Hammond when asked if she recognizes the games played by students on their iPhones. Hammond also expresses how she thinks probably a quarter of the class play mobile games in her study halls.