Cell Phones In The Classroom Analysis

Cellphones are no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity, in the world that we live in today. A study conducted by Statistics Canada in 2013 found that 83% of Canadian households had at least one active cellphone (Ng). But is there a limit to the times and places that the use of a cellphone is considered appropriate? What about in the classroom? Research carried out by the Human Subject Committee at Wilkes University found that “95% of students bring their phones to class every day, 92% use their phones to text message during class time, and 10% admit they have texted during an exam on at least one occasion” (Tindell and Bohlander 1). One must keep these statistics in mind when analyzing the negative impacts that cellphones have in school …show more content…
Students using cellphones during class time become distracted and pay more attention to their cellular devices than the lesson being taught to them. One of the primary uses of cellphones in the classroom is texting. Similar to how the cognitive distraction of texting and driving produces inattention for drivers and increases the risk of an accident, texting during class negatively affects a student’s ability to absorb the material being presented to them (Froese et al. 1). This is especially evident when one looks at a student’s performance on quizzes taken while texting, versus while their phones are turned off. Such an experiment was performed by Sterling College students who found that there is a 27% decline in quiz scores when students are permitted to respond to text messages while taking a quiz (Froese et al. …show more content…
They distract the user and their peers from learning, which negatively impacts their academic performance; cellphones are often misused in the classroom for cheating purposes and to take videos of teachers and/or students; and they can cause more harm than good in a crisis by making students less aware of their surroundings and hindering first responders from arriving to the scene due to parents flocking the school. To permit the use of cellphones in the classroom is to impede schools from nurturing students to reach their full educational potential. With cellphones in the classroom, students are not fully benefiting from classroom instruction and are not in the safest environment possible. Cellphones undermine the very purposes of the educational system. There are appropriate times and places for cellphones usage, and in the classroom is not one of