Op-Ed: Phones In School

The time is 7:30 am and I walk into school. As I walk into class and take my seat I am met with the same gloomy scene of everybody with their heads down on their phone. At first, I used to think everybody was just tired and didn’t want to communicate; that is always how I am in the morning as well. But this, unfortunately, isn’t just prevalent in one class, this is prevalent throughout the whole day in every class that I am in.

There is unfortunately a very big problem that is prevailing in public schools throughout the nation, and that is the use of cell phones during class. According to a 2023 study, 95% of students bring their phones to school every day and 92% use them to text in class. Now that is an insane amount of students. And with that many students using their phones during class, it has started to bring to fruition a big number of problems to schools nationwide.

In this era of technology, there has never been more of a lack of communication between students and teachers. Educators have stated that they are worried that allowing students to spend so much time on their devices is feeding an addiction and stunting students’ development of face-to-face communication skills, and they are exactly right. This generation is sadly filled with kids that are unable to fully communicate with their peers properly. Never has there ever been a generation of kids that deal with an abundance of social and mental health issues such as social anxiety, social awkwardness, antisocial behaviors, loneliness, depression, and avoidance behaviors? And most of these young students won’t realize just how detrimental it will be to have those issues in their adult life until it is too late. 

Not only that, we are seeing a major decline in students' grades more than ever before. Researchers discovered a negative relationship between mobile phone usage and students’ academic performance, such that every 100 minutes that a student spent using their phone a day lead to the student dropping 6.3 places in terms of their academic school ranking. This effect was doubled when the students used their phones whilst actually in class. Now that is a heartbreaking discovery. These students may not see it now, but these issues can gravely affect their future. Students' attention spans can deteriorate so much to where they can lose focus on what they need to be doing. Students can end up becoming lazy and unmotivated to pursue their education. Students can even end up hurting their grades so badly to the point where doors of future career possibilities can close on them. 

This shouldn’t be the case at all when it comes to our students. Our students should be motivated. Our students should be striving for success. Our students should be united. Our students should be engaging with each other. Our students should be collaborating. But all of these things are being torn apart because of our cell phones.

School principals need to look into this issue and act on it. There are many actions that can be taken on this issue such as restricting phones, teaching students the dangers of cell phone use, teaching students good discipline practices to make sure their phones aren’t in the way, or if need be just banning cell phones entirely. Principles and Board of Education members please look into this, because the future of students could very well be at stake.

Works Cited

“Cell Phone Usage in Schools 2023: Statistics And Insights • GITNUX.” Gitnux, 22 March 2023, blog.gitnux.com/cell-phone-usage-statistics/. Accessed 3 May 2023.

“The impact of mobile phones on grades | The Facts & Research.” InnerDrive Education Blog, blog.innerdrive.co.uk/the-impact-of-mobile-phones-on-grades. Accessed 3 May 2023.

“The Relationship between Cellphone Usage on the Physical and Mental Wellbeing of University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.” NCBI, 30 July 2022, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368281/. Accessed 3 May 2023.