Have you ever been to Target in July? Think about what the back of a local Target looks like at that time of year: it is usually decorated with giant cardboard pencils hanging from the ceiling, with aisles of school supplies from crayons to pens to backpacks and binders. The annual back-to-school shopping rush is inevitable and, likewise, costly. According to statista, the average family in 2024 spent around $875 for back-to-school shopping. That includes school books, notebooks, pens, clothes, electronics, and anything else kids are lugging around for their 8am to 3pm day. The truth is, all this back-to-school buzz has negative financial, physical, and environmental impacts.
Not only are school supplies a financial burden, but they are also a physical one. The National Institute of Health said, “Students carried on average over 15% of their own body weight, which caused biomechanical and physiological adaptations that could increase musculoskeletal injury risk, fatigue, redness, swelling, and discomfort.”. It even states that some children were found carrying “30% to 40% of their body weight.” Meanwhile the recommendation is “,around 10% of the child’s body weight as a maximum limit.” Essentially, carrying heavy backpacks regularly impacts children and teens’ muscular development and physical health, and on average, students are carrying an extremely heavy amount on their bodies.
At the end of my freshman year, cleaning my room, I found myself wondering, “What do I do with all my notebooks?” It felt insensitive to toss all my hard work from the year in the garbage, but it also felt like an episode of Hoarders to put them in a cabinet. I had wished it was all digital, then it could just sit in Google Drive. Then it hit me: just embrace technology more.
The accessibility of technology is frequently overlooked, and the benefits are impressive. Instead of purchasing $900 in school supplies, schools should implement the use of iPads and styluses. They may be stigmatized as expensive, but they pay themselves off much quicker than assumed. A 256-GB iPad with an Apple Pencil from Apple’s website costs $500. If students invested in an iPad their freshman year, they would cost $125 a year, a much more financially viable investment than hundreds of dollars in notebooks, pencils, and other supplies. iPads have endless capabilities, too. Utilizing applications like Goodnotes or Notability allows for great alternatives to notebooks and pencils, eliminating papercuts and panic if someone loses their pencil. It allows for digital organization and the learning advantages of handwritten note-taking. Need to annotate for English? Apple Books have both highlighting and note-taking functions on books purchased in the app. Most importantly, teachers should opt for digital textbooks as a lightweight, simpler alternative.
The financial, organizational, and physical benefits are evident, as are the environmental ones. If schools switch to reliance on technology, that means 100s of pieces of paper are saved, in addition to less reliance on plastic pens, pencils, and highlighters. That saves trees, animals, and a whole lot of waste. So, when making lesson plans for next year, faculty should consider implementing an iPad someone can use next year instead of a notebook that will end up being a dusty part of cabinets and moving boxes.
