We all know the benefits of what smart technology brings into our lives. Needless to say, smartphones top the list of the most useful gadgets that ever got invented on the face of the earth. I hardly know of anyone who doesn’t have a smartphone or a phone at least. It has become a common household item, and people just can’t live without it. Gone are the days when one used to send letters across each other, and it used to take days if not weeks to finally come to know if your dad had bought a new Ferrari (I wish he had one though), or to understand what’s going on at the other side of the world with your cousin family. Context of the matter is that smartphones have taken the world by storm and its uses have been widely and well accepted.
The topic at hand is whether cell phones, in other words, smart-phones should be allowed in schools or not! This article covers the subject from a “NO” point of view. Students should not be allowed to carry smartphones to schools. Forget about giving you 11 well-researched points, I could have written a well-prepared e-Book with a 100 page stating why it is harmful to let our children carry mobile phones to their school.
A student with a cellphone in hand is an uninterested student in the class. They tend to have short attention span when it comes down to being attentive during lectures, and their prime focus is to know what’s going on in their social circles using the plethora of social media channels that are present. Hey, I am not against these social media channels; in fact, I am a big fan of these myself. But socialising while a class is in session, is becoming the norm these days!
Table of Contents
Top Reasons Why Cellphones Should Be Banned In Schools
Here in this article, I discuss the Top 11 well-researched reasons why cell phones should not be allowed in school and especially in the classrooms.
Cellphones cause distraction
The notifications feature on our cellphones are a great way to keep you alerted with whatever goes on in your smartphone world. But this is a big NO-NO for a student who is sitting in their classroom, and instead of focusing on what the lecturer is on about, they pick up their phones every time there is a notification buzz. Most of us do it unknowingly since we are so addicted to picking up our phone’s whenever there is a notification alert. This greatly distracts the student even while they are at their class. And then there are these other types of students who try to level up their favourite hero in a game present on their smartphones while the class is in session. But what happens is, by the time they are done levelling up their character in the game, they end up missing the important notes in the lectures, and we hear all about such students failing in their mid-terms and sessions such as exams and final years.
You wouldn’t want your kid to end up failing just because they were too busy using their smartphones during their classes. Altogether the most crucial reason to ban smartphones uses in schools.
Poor Grades
When students are too accustomed to carrying their smartphones with them to their schools, the possibility of getting poor grades increases. Glad that you asked how! By the time your kid picks up their phone during a class in session, when they are done with it; the brain requires a minimum of 5 minutes period to re-align what’s going on in the classroom and most importantly in the lecture. Thus leaving your child to miss out on essential points and forget taking notes. This eventually lands up the student in a dicey situation as you are mostly not permitted to ask the lecturer to repeat what was being taught 10 minutes back. All sorts of backlash from your peers and heck, even the teacher wouldn’t be that accommodative to this request, and the student might end up facing disciplinary action.
Emotional distress
With the way more and more youngsters are adapting to social media and other socialising platforms, there are obvious pros to it. But let us not forget about what detrimental affect it has on the student’s mental wellbeing. Cyberbullying is taking up a lot of space on the internet and kids are continuously being picked up viz. harassment and loads of other stuff. Then there is always the chance of un-filtered internet traffic that they can go through using their personal smartphones. And then to top it all off, if they had an argument with their boyfriend of their girlfriend, this feud then easily gets carried over with them into their school time via their phones. All this has a huge impact on their mental well-being and to top it all off, they end up thinking about these things instead of focusing on the task at hand.
Homework gets affected
If your kid is accustomed to carrying their smartphone to their schools, then what makes you think that they won’t be using it while at home? Since they are used to using their smartphones at home and focusing on what goes on in their social circles throughout the day and during the class; then chances are that the homework that they get would not be completed either. As a result, their grades start taking a massive hit, and they end up failing their weekly or monthly tests. Therefore I stand firm by my decision of not letting the kids carry their smartphones along with them at their schools. Not having a smartphone on during their school time would allow them to focus on what is being taught without a gadget being their biggest distraction. And eventually, when they reach home; at least they know what was taught back in the school that very day and they can efficiently then complete their homework.
Escape route mechanism
Often at times, we see kids loitering around using their smartphones when an important task is being handed out to them. This is because they believe that if they spend a considerable amount of time on their phones, giving out the vibe that they are busy and hence would not be asked to do a particular chore. This is becoming an everyday thing these days amongst the young generation, and the main culprit that enhances this specific trait in them is the use of a smartphone both in schools and outside.
To succeed, you need Education
I know this particular one is going to raise an eyebrow on some of my readers, but this is a bitter truth. In order to succeed in life, you need to be educated. There is no two-way about it! One has to complete its bare minimum level of qualification to sustain in today’s fast-moving world. You just can’t ignore studies and believe that everything is going to be alright at the end of the day. Let me tell you one thing straight up, you need to have that minimum level of qualification to land up a job or do something you love the most and convert it into a business. After all, money is proven to be an essential factor of well-being, and that only comes if you ensure that your child is given that education for which the universities, colleges and schools are built. I agree that it all narrows down to how much does a particular student perceives in terms of what is being taught, but the moral obligation of any parent is to ensure their child is given that level of education through which they can sustain and generate income to uphold their families’ and future.
Smartphone use at school, complete hampers this process. Kids are so used to using their smartphones day in day out that they are not bothered if they get ample sleep. Then they end up waking up without the right amount of sleep, feeling sluggish and tired; the result of which is that they are not attentive during school time. College and universities in today’s world are not cheap. It costs a lot for both the students and their parents to churn out a great deal of money if they are to put them into the educational system. Smartphones use at school doesn’t help this cause, now does it?
Cheating in exams
With the vast amount of students carrying their handsets with them to their classrooms, it is a common known fact that most of them are not attentive during their classroom time either. Which in result, hampers them from learning. Which in return has a massive impact on how they appear for their exams and tests? What then happens is that they end up cheating on their exam and risk at getting caught. This isn’t something that any parent would want to see and let me be honest, cheating is the foundation of destruction in our society. I know it’s a bold statement, but I think I am confident with my research and analysis when I conclude to this.
Cyberbullying at its peak
With the invent of a plethora of social media apps and platforms through which your kid could be on about using them every day, they are at risk of being bullied online. Kid’s pick up on each other and start passing inflammatory statements on social media apps just to annoy the other kid across the room or class. The phones are continuously going off during the course and instead of focusing on what is being taught, they are so very much annoyed with what that other person has commented on their recent Facebook post. This by far is the worst distraction for any kid and hurts their mental wellbeing. Then a series of depression and anxiety starts kicking in into such students and thus end up being ill and start taking day offs from school. From personal experience and point of view, I had been bullied back in the days through social media and let me tell you; it definitely takes a toll on you, and you cannot perform the way you are supposed to. It causes you to end up into a mental state where you forget about eating, drinking and doing anything healthy for you since all of your energy and mental focus is focused on that particular bully who is making you feel like “poo” just because they are a fan of cyberbullying.
Social life and its benefits
A kid is someone who is being nourished and being taught with how life works. Both in school and outside of it. Spending almost all day using their smartphones is detrimental to their health. They forget about the real social life that exists outside the walls of this digital era. They are too keen to know what status updates are there from someone who is across the globe, but barely know what is going on with people who are seated right next to them. Social interaction is not just sending out a WhatsApp message to your friends. Instead, it means you go out and spend quality time with your family and friends. Go to a park or schedule road-trips out in the mountains. This has a significant favourable influence on the overall development of your child’s brain and also allows them to see what this beautiful world has to offer to them.
The worst impact of smartphones in school kids that if someone passes a lousy statement on their recent post, they start believing that this is what the reality is and they are a social reject. No one likes them, and they are unwanted. My God! This is too dangerous for any parent to hear if their kid comes up to them and states they are unwanted just because someone on the internet thought it would be fun to let this other person know that they are a reject.
Teacher’s response to the usage of smartphones in school
At my kid’s school, I conducted a survey where I had interviewed 10 teachers of different faculties. 70% of them stated they were against permission for allowing a student to carry their mobile phones into their classrooms. Care to know why?
- Student’s spend most of their time playing video games in class
- Whenever the cellphone rings, it distracts the whole classroom
- Texting on its own is a major distraction
- Cheating cannot be controlled as you never know if the students are sharing the answer
Involvement in Physical Education and Activities
It is a known fact that students who enjoy spending their time on their smartphones at home are accustomed to following that same routine and pattern during their school time as well. Thus not only does their education gets affected, but they refuse to also participate in team-building exercises, physical education training and whatnot. Kids enjoy using their mobile phones during such periods instead of going out with the group and socialising and enjoying a game with their classmates. For such, playing Fifa on their smartphones is more fun than playing the actual game of football. What a sad story!
Conclusion
Do not get me wrong. I am a tech geek myself and have nothing against the usage of smartphones for schooling. But the time that is spent by kids in today’s world is unexplainable. Their only target is to reach the school and hop onto their smartphones without considering all the above merits. Obviously there is a moral responsibility that plays its role from a teacher’s point of view, but there is fairly too much to it that they can say to a student who has brought in their smartphones to their classrooms. It is indeed challenging to impose a complete ban on the usage of smartphones at schools since other bloggers in this niche would say otherwise and can come up with hundreds of reasons to support the use of smartphones at schools. But call me old school, I firmly believe that schools are a place where you are sent to get educated. Not to spend time on your cell phones.
You can most certainly allow your kid to get benefitted from digital literacy. This is what the whole concept of this blog is all about, but letting a child to go to schools with smartphones on them, and not teaching them what the repercussions of such an act are is, in my opinion, a game that no parent should ever play.
Please ensure that as a responsible parent, you limit the use of smartphone time of your children.
