By Reid Heavner
Staff Writer
Since they were invented, smartphones have plagued classrooms. The little capsules of distraction, temptation and interruptions cause nothing but chaos in a classroom. As we near the end of the year, it’s natural to want to cut corners or waste class time on your phone.
Numerous studies all agree that phones provide a distraction and problem for much longer than they’re in use. A study in December by the UN suggested that it takes as much as 20 minutes for you to refocus after you’ve used your phone. This means that if you check your phone just three times in each class, you might never be able to focus fully. Another study, commissioned by Hewlett-Packard, suggested that the damage to your intelligence of showing up to school always under the influence of drugs would be just half the effect of receiving notifications on your.
However, each individual student is challenged differently by phones. In particular, students with ADHD or other similar disorders find this issue more challenging than most, but this isn’t the only cause for phone overuse. In some classes, this problem is especially obvious, in large part due to the variation of enforcement by teachers of phone regulations.
Parents’ behavior also feeds the problem. Similar to the student population, most parents are respectful and reasonable about their children’s phones. There are still a few, though, who encourage phone usage. “The parents are enablers . . . it totally undermines everything that the school is trying to do,” said instrumental music director Tim Decker about phone use in his classroom. “There’s so much access to everything, all in the palm of your hand. Sometimes, that’s not a good thing.”
Despite all of their damaging uses, phones can have positive effects as well. This is what makes them potent: that they can pretend as a tool and become a toy. As a treasure trove of knowledge and facts, they can enhance the capabilities of our school as an institution for knowledge and facts. We still need to be careful with how we use this powerful technology.
