By Crystal Hayduk
Bradley Dunn’s personal perspective on smartphone use inspired him to write a compelling letter about a modern-day problem.
Dunn, a rising junior at Chelsea High School (CHS), is a finalist in the open letter contest held by the New York Times (NYT) last spring.
More than 8,000 middle and high school students wrote letters in response to the challenge: “Write an open letter to a specific audience that calls attention to an issue or problem and prompts reflection or action on it” (from the contest announcement). Dunn’s letter was one of only 150 chosen to move on to the final round of judging.
Dawn Putnam, an English teacher at CHS, said all tenth grade Honors English students were given the assignment as part of their unit on persuasive writing. Although students were not obliged to enter the NYT contest, they were required to submit their open letters to the publication of their choice.
Dunn, son of Sara Steffanni and Mike Dunn, said it wasn’t hard to decide on a topic for his letter. He first got his own phone last November. Although he previously had access to a family phone, he only carried it some of the time.
“I ended up in the unique position of spending a lot of time watching other people use their phones, which they did more and more as we got older,” said Dunn. He thought about the value of time spent on smartphones compared with the value of time spent in human interaction.
His thoughts and feelings, along with extra research, resulted in his open letter to smartphone users.
When Dunn learned last week that he was a contest finalist, he emailed Putnam, and his eighth and ninth grade English teachers, Alyssa Knupp and Adam Schilt, to express his excitement and to thank them for helping him to improve his writing over the past three years.
Putnam said she is proud of Dunn’s work and his accomplishment. She is also pleased that her Honors English students chose topics they were passionate about to complete their open letter assignment.
Dunn said, “Although getting to be a finalist for the NYT is amazing, I didn’t write the article to win. I wrote it because I think the overuse of social media and screens is a very real problem facing today’s teenagers (and adults).
“While I know one article won’t break a person’s screen addiction, I hope I can at least get people to think a bit more before they scroll.”
