For many students, a backpack is non-negotiable, it’s something to carry all your pens and pencils, notebooks, ipads and for some students laptops or textbooks. However, with the amount of things a high school student has to worry about, adding to the stress with physical pain isn’t the best idea. Students often carry so much in their backpack it becomes difficult to carry around, but leaving everything at home is not an option, so students just deal with it. This overload has led to significant increase in back pain, poor posture and spinal issues later in life.
In a world where technology and smaller devices are standard, it is questionable for the weight of a backpack to be increasing, but that’s not the case. In the 2000s, the average high school backpack in America was 17 pounds and now in 2025 the average is 18.4 pounds. But why is this? Well for many students the cause is simple. Having to carry around both a device and traditional school supplies. In fact, the difference between the two averages is nearly the exact weight of an ipad. And it gets worse when thinking about when a teacher has students carry around binders or textbooks.
Meera Ravi, a sophomore at Troy High School, says, “in some of my classes we need a textbook some days and on those days i know i’ll have to carry it around the whole day and just have a heavier bag.” The weight of one textbook may not seem like much, but imagine that on those days another class requires students to bring a binder and another to bring an extra notebook, all this combined weight can very quickly add up, turning a convenient bag into a serious burden.
As more students speak up about the weight of their backpacks the more options there are to solve it. Many schools have students use lockers and Troy High School does offer that as an option, however, it is not ideal as a passing period is only six minutes long, having to walk to a locker and then to a class might not be possible for some within the time frame. Ravi proposes a change in how students learn and do class assignments, “it feels like the school won’t make up its mind, I think the best way to deal with it is to decide whether students should do majority work on devices or on paper, so that we don’t always have to carry both every day.” Schools should decide on one medium, digital or physical, this could be a crucial first step in reducing the weight students carry each day. Giving students bigger lockers or more time in between classes could also be a good chance to make the change they need to.
