Cell Phones in School—Is It a Problem?
Traven outside playing 'Among Us' on his phone
As time goes on, more and more students carry personal devices with them. Due to the overwhelming use of cell phones, is it starting to interfere with students’ education, or is it becoming an incredible new tool for schooling? In a 2023 Common Sense Media study, experts found that ninety-seven percent of students used their phones every day, not just for educational purposes, but for social media, YouTube, or games. I believe that for some people, the overuse of cell phones in a day is a problem. But the study also revealed that some students spent over six and a half hours on their phones, while others had less than a minute. If this time was geared toward educational purposes, it would be a different story.
The average number of pickups in a day was 51 times, but this is a little biased because many students had just over two pickups, while the highest number was 498 times in a day. This number is highly affected by the school’s rules on phone use. The Common Sense Media study also found that the students they monitored that went to schools with these rules had an extremely low number of pickups and screen time.The Common Sense Media study found that when a student did open their phone, they turned to apps/sites that are hardly educational. These included social media platforms (TikTok, Instagram) 32 percent of the time, YouTube 26 percent, and gaming 17 percent.
So, when looking at the stats, I believe that when rules restricting cell phones are put into place, students and teachers are positively benefited by it. They spend much more time on their studies and less time on our personal devices.
It is interesting to note that the study said the average was 51 but didn’t account for (or didn’t appear to count for) the outliers. As I am currently taking a statistics class, I would like to review that study and look at the distribution of the data they collected, and how they collected it. I also want to know if they considered other variables like age/grade and gender to see if there are any significant differences. All in all, I think that there should be more discussion and research on this topic as many teachers are now mandating that phones are to be parked in reserved areas, and even going as far as marking students absent if their phone isn’t present (I know that many teachers are understanding if you forgot your phone at home/don’t have a phone/ forgot to put your phone up). Thats my two cents anyways.