The decision to ban smartphones has recently been a topic of debate.
People have different opinions about banning smartphones while in the classroom. Some argue that they are essential to learning with all of their technological advances and are often described as boosting your overall intelligence.
On the other side of this debate, some argue they can have a negative impact on your learning.
To me, a smartphone is like a shuriken knife: It can be very useful and get you out of complicated situations, but it can also hurt you if you don’t know how to use it properly.
It cannot be denied that a smartphone is one of the essential items in daily life. Modern technologies have truly upgraded our lives due to their convenience and rapid search capabilities.
In a school setting, smartphones have many positive impacts.
They create chances for students and teachers to quickly access information that is not mentioned in the textbook or to find more advanced-level material.
There are also many educational apps, such as Kahoot!, that have been created to help teachers create an interactive and innovative classroom. This would allow students to have more opportunities to approach different study methods and global strategies.
Without a doubt, smartphones do provide very useful tools to the user.
With that being said, there’s also many negatives to smartphones being used in the classroom.
Smartphones have the ability to limit the chances for students to learn and build essential skills. They could be considered a distraction, go against academic integrity and affect a student’s overall desire to learn.
This is why I believe that phones should be banned in a classroom setting.
With there being constant access to information outside of the textbooks, this could in turn discourage students from critically thinking and having a deeper understanding of the material they are learning.
Banning phones would encourage students to be more creative and explore different techniques to solve the problem that is being presented to them.
Having phones in the classroom allows students to rely more on their phones when taking a test or an exam and may make the students not want to study.
If phones were not allowed during the class, not even on their person, that would limit the desire to cheat and students would study more and give them more of a capability to learn.
The educational apps could create a very active learning environment. They could also cause a negative impact to the students learning capabilities. While these apps could give the correct answer, most of these apps don’t explain the reasoning behind this answer, which leaves the students to not fully understand the question.
With technology advancing, artificial intelligence writing has become more of a tool for students. AI detectors were then created to stop this measure but in some cases, could falsely accuse writers.
Keeping devices out of classes would limit this accusation and would not result in punishment.
Also, when phones are not introduced into the classroom, it allows students to be more open and social towards their peers and teachers. Students will then be more encouraged to engage with each other face-to-face, and be able to work more on their communication and collaboration skills.
Phones also can cause a major distraction while in the classroom. With such a wide span of activities on a phone, there is more attention towards the phone rather than the teacher.
With music and games being accessible at any time, students often put their earbuds on and listen to music or scroll through social media and not participate in the discussions and lectures.
Prohibiting phones would also give more respect to their teachers and give the teachers more passion about the material they are teaching. Which, in return, would make the students have a better relationship with their teachers.
Also ,banning phones would prepare the students for the real world. Many businesses and professional settings prohibit the use of phones. If phones were restricted while in the classroom, it would allow the individual to garner qualities of “adulthood” and produce more of a professional mind.
In conclusion, the smartphone has many commendable attributes, like giving external information and more studying methods, but I believe that phones should not be allowed in the classrooms. There are too many negative repercussions that come with allowing phones in class.