Cell Phones in the Classroom

Cell phones have been a constant debate since they were made more and more affordable to the public, especially once teenagers were able to get a hold of them. The author, Robert Earl, proves the problems that they cause in the classroom through two examples; drop of a student’s focus and attention span and a declining ability to think on their feet. Through these examples Earl is able to point out how cell phones do more harm than good in a classroom. Earl also explains that there are ways to incorporate these devices into everyday learning.
Imagine yourself walking into a class of high school students. One would expect to hear kids scribbling on notepads, writing down what the teacher is explaining in the front of the class. However, you hear small, inconsistent giggling, and constant, faint tapping noise. You begin to think to yourself “what is that?” It turns out it’s the endless flood of messages that the students are receiving, causing them to lose focus and not pay attention to the instructor. Wouldn’t this multi-tasking cause a student to lose focus and lose certain educational abilities? Earl addresses this stating; “multi-tasking can reduce productivity by 40%, increase stress and cause an fall of 10 points in IQ levels, according to a Harvard study.” Even with this shocking evidence, many high schools choose to ignore it, “after all, it is a generation of short attention spans.”
With all of this decreasing ability to focus and be productive one might ask, “how does this affect these students in the long run? How will it affect their careers or futures?” Earl also answers this question. He begins by stating that “many high school students have grown unaccustomed to reading anything more than 140-characters.” If one truly thinks about this, deeply and with a purpose, this is scary. It is scary in the sense that if something requires a bit of diving into to find an answers that students will simply give up because it comes across as too daunting of a task to read that much. What may come of that is frustration because of that. Earl continues on “what students lose on such a dependency is the ability to respond quickly on their feet – in a boardroom presentation, for example – as well as a keen common sense about math and science. There’s no thinking going on.” These examples prove that we should worry about this generation. How can they effectively run things?
People should, and have the right to, be worried about this generation. However, this can all be changed around. This does not mean that all is lost. This only means that we need to change a few things to help these students succeed.
Outlawing cell-phones won’t just stop the problem. The problem can also be solved in the learning environment itself; the solution lies within the instructors. Teachers must connect with their students, must get them to have a hunger, a yearning, and a thirst for knowledge. They must be inspired to want to go and learn, to have the need to find out things on their own.
Finally, to help this generation that lives with all this access to technology, we need to integrate their devices into the learning. It may, in time, prove to be an invaluable asset to learning in the 21st century. Earl explains that “They give students a chance to collaborate with each other, or connect with peers in other countries,” and “They can be used for high-tech alternatives to boring classroom lectures, letting kids take part in interactive assignments like classroom polls.” Through these initiatives we can help these kids obtain the focus required, while also creating the hunger for knowledge and making learning fun.
In conclusion, schools will never to fully eliminate the problem, but they can learn to embrace these issues that arise with cell phones. That is how we can gain a student’s focus back, create his/her ability to think on their feet, and incorporate the devices into classroom use.

Works Cited

Earl, Robert. "Do Cell Phones Belong in the Classroom?" Editorial. Www.theatlantic.com, 18 May 2012. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. <http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/do-cell-phones-belong-in-the-classroom/257325/>.