by Lucia Rodriguez
Druid Hills High School
I was sitting in my fourth period history class when, for the third time, my history teacher stopped and stared at our class. As I looked around to figure out why he stopped talking, I noticed multiple students looking down at their phones. This situation is happening across the country and not enough is being done to stop phone usage during school.
According to Education Weekly, 97% of students use their phones at some point during the school day. Although this is an alarmingly high percentage of students, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Our entire society now revolves around a metal talking device.
I have come to realize the tremendous effect that cell phone usage is having on my peers and me. Many of us stay up late talking to friends, watching shows or just aimlessly scrolling through social media which ends up ruining our sleep schedule. The worst part about this endless cycle of cell phone usage is the fact that we’re all aware of how horrible it is for us and our mental health, but we also can’t seem to get off the internet because it’s everywhere.
“I think especially when you’re just in your bed at night, scrolling on your phone, you’re like ‘one more show’ or ‘one more video’ but you keep constantly scrolling and it’s an endless cycle,” sophomore Emory Miller said.
Lack of sleep has a direct correlation with performance in school and Idaho State University wrote an article titled “How Sleep Impacts Your Studies” that proves this statement. The article goes on to talk about how lack of sleep can lead to a decrease in focus and memory, an increase in irritability and anxiety, and physical exhaustion. All of those factors are critical in the outcome of someone’s day and I can attest that a lack of sleep hinders my learning experience.
Aside from the physical effects that cell phone usage can have on school performance out of school, there are many factors that affect school performances in school. One of the most concerning is the increase in cheating and how easy it has become to cheat. A study found on Verywell Family says that 35% of teens admit to using their phones to cheat on homework or tests and 65% of the same students stated that they’ve seen their peers using phones to cheat. As a student myself, I can attest to how easy cheating has become in school (not that I would ever cheat). Platforms like Quizlet and Socratic allow you to look up a question and receive the answer almost instantly, but they also help when it comes to studying so it just depends on how you use the resource. Now with the introduction of AI into classrooms, there has been a tremendous increase in fabricated work, and we can only expect this issue to grow with time.
Along with the cheating, students spend their time in class scrolling on their phones, listening to music, watching TV, or shopping online. This limits student’s ability to focus and retain information during lectures. An article written by the Berkeley High Jacket called “Teenage Attention Spans: Where Did They Go?” talks about how teens’ attention span is task-dependent and how we could spend hours scrolling on the internet but can only focus on homework for less than twenty minutes. I have noticed my attention span shorten as the years pass and I can confidently say it’s because of TikTok. I used to love watching movies but now I’m lucky if I manage to watch an episode of a show without going on my phone because my brain gets bored so fast. Obviously, in a room full of teenagers, people are going to get bored and go on their devices, but if a phone ban was placed the kids would have no choice but to listen.
At the root of my reason in favor of a phone ban in school is the teachers. Our teachers spend countless hours preparing lesson plans and making sure that our curriculum is adequate and it breaks my heart to see students disregard their hard work by going on their phones.
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