Cell Phone Use in Schools

Since the last decade, cell phone use has gained a tremendous amount of popularity throughout society attracting audiences of all ages. Over the years, technology has significantly improved from what it used to be—cell phones especially. Cell phones are no longer simple mobile device with a dial pad that help individuals communicate with one other as they have now evolved into so much more than an old-fashioned cell phone. Today, aside from being a telephone, they now may include a camera, a radio, a video recorder, an internet browser, etc. This multi-purpose use for cell phones is what attracts such a large audience—including children. Cell phones are the newest fad and many children feel that they must own one. With this increase of children owning cell phones, teachers are finding that more cellphones are being brought inside the classroom. Cell phones distract both the student and other peers from learning inside the classroom.
Students will find a ringing cell phone during a lecture to be annoying and distracting. Schools have made policies banning cell phone use on school premises. These rules, however, are still not putting an end to cell phone use in classrooms. If a student is in a lecture and their cell phone rings, they are not only disrupting the teacher’s lecture, but they are in return disrupting themselves from retaining material taught in class. Furthermore, students sitting around them are affected from the disruptive event. A cell phone does not just have to ring in class to be disruptive; texting in class can also be disruptive to students. During a lecture, a student who is constantly texting will not comprehend the material being discussed in class and will be affected by this during evaluation time. This concept is especially worse when a student is constantly texting another classmate. Now, there are multiple students being distracted from learning. If there are more than one pair of students texting each other in the class, than the