Cracked Screens are a reality for Urban Youth.
Visit any high school or middle school and ask students to see their phones. We guarantee that you are going to see broken and cracked screens at a 25%-50% or higher rate. What rate do you see in your experience? Too many of our youth have to live with these phones with cracked screens for months and months. With resources being tight for many families, getting a phone in hand is a privilege that can only happen once every couple years. Parents and guardians make financial sacrifices to get their children phones they will be happy with and that generosity stops once the phone is in their hand. Many times families cannot afford to add on insurance protection plans that still require a monthly payment and nearly $100 deductible on repairs.
Why Phones Don’t Get Fixed
This results in youth having to make due when their phone screens crack. They have to either go back to their folks with evidence of their “irresponsibility” and ask for repairs and a trip to a repair shop like uBreakiFix, where repairs can range from $75-$250+. Just look at the prices in listed in this article to get a better sense of how much repairs cost.
BootUp Steps Up to Fix Phones
At BootUp, we want to empower youth and adults in our community to learn how to make these repairs themselves. Over the past couple of months we have begun working to repair the cracked screens of the youth at BootUp, helping to alleviate the additional financial burdens on families and to help minimize the frustrations youth feel when are forced to use a phone with a cracked screen.
The Right to Repair Debate and more
BootUp will be diving into the topic of the impact of cracked screens on youth in the community in the future. There is surely more to this than a minor inconvenience. The reality of cracked screens likely causes cracks in social and psychological wellbeing of youths already experiencing challenging lives. This work also provides us the opportunity to educate youth about the politics of Right to Repair and some of the important dialogues happening in the world of tech around users rights to fix, upgrade and customize their devices. Check out this video the right to repair from Trevor Noah and the Daily Show. Consider reading this article about the Biden administration’s 2021 executive order giving owners more power to repair their own devices. While the right to repair debate continues, BootUp will work to make sure our teen’s cracked screens get the repaired as they chase their dreams!
