It is becoming increasingly common for kids to break their cell phones, whether it is completely inoperable or the glass on the screen is shattered.

Junior Kristen Morneau broke her phone to the point of no return in the cheerleading locker room.

“I set it on this big tank in the cheer room and it slid off and fell about 4 feet onto concrete and shattered,” said Morneau. “Then a week later I dropped it on the ground while getting into a car and it blacked out and was unresponsive.”

Unlike Morneau, senior Brady Huot has never broken or shattered a phone, though a case wasn’t really a factor.

“Whenever I have dropped my phone I don’t have a case on it but when I have one on I almost never drop it,” Huot said.

“I think that it is stupid for people to break their phones just so they can color them, just get a phone case with a design on it,” said Huot. “They could do something on accident to it and be screwed out of getting a new one for awhile.”

Morneau agrees with Huot in the fact that breaking your phone on purpose is a bad idea.

“I think it’s dumb because you can just buy a colored back glass on Amazon for $5, and replace it on your own and keep the old back glass in case you shatter the new one,” Morneau said.

Cases don’t seem to be helping much either, although popular belief is that with a case it won’t break. Most figure, the more expensive the case, the better protected your phone will be.

“I had a $20 case on it [the phone] when it shattered and then after I had to put it in the bag so that the glass wouldn’t get in my fingers,” Morneau said.

It may not even be the case that protects the phone, just the owner’s attention to the phone.

“Whenever I have dropped my phone I don’t have a case on it but when I have one on I almost never drop it,” said Huot. “I usually have a case on it but not recently.”

Freshman Katie Monsen knows the feeling of breaking a phone all too well after breaking quite a few of her own.

“I broke an iPhone into 4 different parts,” Monsen said.

Monsen’s parents usually replace the phone quickly.

“I’ve said it joking around but never seriously thought of doing it [breaking a phone on purpose],” Monsen said.

Huot believes that it is solely the owner and their possession of certain objects, possibly taking advantage of their parents generosity, that breaks phones.

“Kids think that just because they don’t have to pay for another phone that they can just break them on purpose and their parents will buy them a new one,” Huot said.

Huot also thinks that some kids break their phones and say it was an accident so they can get the newest style of phone.

“Absolutely [they do], at least those kids that know that their parents will go through with it,” Huot said.

So that leaves the basic question, is the increase in phones breaking due to lack of responsibility, or selfish actions? Morneau, Huot, and Monsen all agree that breaking a phone on purpose is wrong, no matter what the reason is.