By: Seth Crawford & Rio Tan
November 20, 2023
This student is away from focus during class due to distractions, potentially making a rise in cell phone bans.
Over several years, students have increasingly relied on their cell phones in classrooms, possibly sparking a global attempt for awareness of cell phone usage in classrooms in the future.
In the Netherlands, starting January 1, 2024, cell phones, tablets, and smartwatches will be banned from classrooms, the Dutch education administrators announced to limit distractions and interruptions in class.
"Even though mobile phones are intertwined with our lives, they do not belong in the classroom. Students need to be able to concentrate and need to be given the opportunity to study well. Mobile phones are a disturbance, scientific research shows. We need to protect students against this," education administrator Robbert Dijkgraaf said in a statement.
Students have used their cell phones for many reasons, such as taking their attention away from learning, using them to joke around in class, and to text friends during lessons, making them unable to focus on a single thing that's going on in class. This makes it hard for students to focus on what they're learning because they are unable to focus on their phones and what their teachers are saying at the same time.
"The human brain is incapable of thinking more than one thing at a time, and so what we think of as multitasking is actually rapid-switch-tasking. And the problem with that is that switch-tasking may cover a lot of ground in terms of different subjects, but it doesn't go deeply into any of them," Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School said in an interview.
A university study data showed students who use their phones in class do significantly worse. The study, published in Educational Psychology, found that students who attended lectures where cell phone usage is permitted did worse than where students were not permitted to use their cell phones, suggesting that cell phones damage group learning environments.
"Many dedicated students think they can divide their attention in the classroom without harming their academic success- but we found an insidious effect on exam performances and final grades," Arnold Glass, a professor of psychology said in a statement.
This study exhibits the affect of cell phones on students during class, which was made with the constructive opinions of teachers and parents.
In a setting completely devoid of cell phones, there are many functions a cell phone would serve that would save a student from a situation where they are not prepared for class. The cell phone's complexity is almost as wondrous as distracting, so it strikes the question if we should specialize these rules, highlighting the use of cell phones in class.
"When students forget their Chromebooks, they can use their cell phones to get on what the teacher is talking about," Herberth Ramos-Pena, a 9th grader at Carver High School of Engineering and Science stated in an interview.
However, preparation is key when it comes to school, and students should be fully prepared to come to school, whether with or without a phone. There are expectations for everyone that enters a school, no matter the merit of the student. One of those expectations being excelling in class with the tools and methods assigned to you to use, which would commonly not be your phone.
"In every class, every day, I see students on their phones irresponsibly. But It's not every student I have. Many are focused, but there's always one in each class," Joseph Dougherty, an English teacher at Carver High School of Engineering and Science said after being asked "How frequently would you say so?"
Social media deeply affects the way we communicate in real life, especially during school as children, spending 7 hours, 5 days a week at school.
Students who mostly use their phones in class can also harm their social environment. Without anyone to make friends with or talk to, how would students behave without their cell phones? Students are mentally challenged when they don't have something to take their mind off of or make them act differently outside of the internet. School prepares you to be able to communicate with others and work with one another, if not independently.
"The internet starts a lot of drama, right? And in school, you can't be talking smack on Instagram or something to people that attend your school. And then that just turns into drama in real life in school with the person you'd see everyday," Andres Alarcon, a 9th grader who attends Carver High School of Engineering and Science said in a statement.
Furthermore, in psychology, research finds that the negative impacts on learning mainly comes from multitasking, specifically from cell phones. These negative impacts may lead to a worldwide ban of cellphones in classrooms to help students focus and understand the concepts of what they're learning.
After being asked if the untimely cell phone use was evolving globally, Herberth said in an interview, "I mean, in other countries, the rules might be more strict, and authorities would probably think differently than us, since they'd want us students to not have or even use our cell phones."
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