Over the Past Ten Years, Phones Have Reshaped Our Day to Day Lives. At Carver, the Classroom Has Been Impacted by Technology in Unexpected Ways.

Students’ all over the country are having more trouble than ever staying focused. Both teachers and students at Carver believe it is because of technology. 

George Washington Carver High School is a school where technology has become a constant. Carver teacher Alexander Leed explains how the increase of technology and phone use has changed the flow of his classroom. In the past, he would be able to teach for a larger portion of the class, but now he has to change how he teaches based on how long students can stay focused.

“I used to be able to captivate an audience for approximately half of the class period with a lot of effort. Now no matter what I do, I have to chunk it down to shorter and shorter and shorter snippets.” said Leed.

Ian Doreian, another Carver highschool teacher, feels that a student’s phone usage has a significant impact on how they will do in his class. The more that they use their phones, the harder it is for students to retain information. 

“There's definitely an overall impact between use of phone and engagement with activities. I think also that students who use their phones anecdotally for my anecdotal evidence is that students who use their phone more frequently typically have lower scores on tests and quizzes” said Doreian.

“I used to be part of schools where the phones had to be confiscated. And that created an absolutely broken relationship between students and teachers, because it was a non negotiable that if a teacher asked for the phone, nothing could continue until that happened” said Doreian.

Students are aware but also unsure on how to solve this problem. Some have extremely high screen time; 10th grade student Makai Gregg Carrington is averaging 13 hours on his iPad and 6 hours on his phone. 

“The students know that the phones are bad and that they have a  healthy relationship with them and they tell me, wait as long as you can to get your kid a smartphone. They just cannot help cannot help themselves” said Leed.

The mere presence of a phone in your pocket can decrease productivity.  Sophomore student Jonah Staples separates himself from his phone when he needs to get his work done because he knows it will always be in the back of his mind. 

“I normally have to throw my phone to the other side of the room when I'm doing my homework because I find that it even being near me while I'm trying to do my homework or something affects my focus,” said Staples.

Over the past twenty years, average attention span among all age groups has dropped from an average of around 150 seconds to 45 seconds. Carver sophomore Liya Bezabih's focus is so damaged that even if she is separated from her phone, she struggles to not think about it. 

“It doesn't matter if I don't have my phone or not because my phone has affected my attention span to the point where even if I don't have my phone, I can't focus” said Bezabih.