The Dissipating Use of School Lockers

Photo taken by Erin

If there’s anything that comes to mind when you think of school, it’s books―a lot of them. Each student here at ERHS has their own way of carrying these books, whether it be through a backpack, or a shoulder-bag. But there has always been another way to store your books, a way that has existed since the early 1900s. For some reason though, this way is becoming less popular each year.

Lockers were invented in the 1700s, but were only put into schools 200 years later. Their main purpose was for storage and they replaced the less secure wooden cubbies that were the norm before. Yet for some reason, I have never met a person who actually utilizes their locker―most of my friends don’t even have one.

Tired of asking myself the same question, I set out to solve the mystery once and for all. I sent out a Google form, asking everything that I have wondered for ages:

Why don’t people use lockers anymore?

64%, or 56 respondents, have a locker, but a little more than half of all respondents know how to open one.

Exactly 50% of people’s lockers don’t work. Many have reported their lockers as being jammed, or simply unable to open. As expected, this is part of why the majority of people don’t use their lockers (only 12% of people surveyed are reported as using their lockers.) 

Of course, this isn’t the only reason why people avoid their lockers, as many others talked about how they are disgusting, and the majority of lockers are damaged. The knobs have been ripped off, the locks are broken, the handles are gone. Not to mention that some of the lockers are outright gross, with gum stuck in between vents, and sticky residues invading the surface. People do not feel compelled to use their lockers due to the conditions they are in―I have a gut feeling that most of the lockers don’t even work. 

But what if the lockers actually did work? What if they were nicer, and cleaner? Would more people start using their lockers then?

Well, the short answer is no.

A ton of people also talked about how they don’t really have a use for their locker, and how it isn’t convenient. Their lockers are too far away from their classes, or take too long to open. Many people also talk about how they use their backpacks to hold all their stuff. Lockers were more popular throughout the 80s and 2000s, probably because of the use of textbooks. Nowadays, textbooks are becoming more and more outdated.

With the rise of computers, Google Docs, and online learning, many people use their Chromebook to access textbooks. With everything stored at the tip of our fingers, physical books and notepads have been decreasing over the years. With students carrying less books, the need for excess storage such as lockers have been disappearing.

Not to mention that backpacks have become the norm. Lockers are beginning to seem inconvenient; why walk across campus for your books when they can all be carried around with you? 

I assume that back in the 1980s, when laptops didn’t exist, lockers were probably more mainstream. Backpacks, being either smaller or rather non-existent, might’ve been used to carry pencil cases and folders, while their books were either carried by hand or stored in their lockers. Lockers were also a way to get to know more people, and were used as a personal meeting place. 

Overall, the use of lockers has been slowly decreasing as textbooks are becoming obsolete. With technology on the rise, many parts of learning have become accessible via Chromebook, and with backpacks becoming the new main storage lockers are slowly falling behind. The disuse of lockers have also caused many of them to become distasteful, and damaged. It seems that lockers are being left behind, for all these reasons alike.