There鈥檚 a Cell Phone in Your Student鈥檚 Head
A 2017 study found that cell phones that were turned off and stashed away silently reasserted themselves鈥攄istracting working students anyway.
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Go to My Saved Content.Many studies have investigated the so-called 鈥渄ownstream鈥澛爀ffect of cell phone presence on learning. Students who split their attention between a learning task and , for example, perform poorly when compared to students who are not dividing their attention.
叠耻迟听聽from the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research suggests that cell phones might have a negative 鈥渦pstream鈥澛爄mpact on learning, too. The authors propose that the mere presence of a cell phone, even when it is silenced and stored out of sight, might be undermining our ability to focus.
鈥淭he presence of one鈥檚 smartphone enables on-demand access to information, entertainment...聽and more,鈥澛爐he study concludes. 鈥淗owever, our research suggests that these benefits鈥攁nd the dependence they engender鈥攎ay come at a cognitive cost.鈥� A bevy of other studies, meanwhile, clearly indicate that environments or activities that聽聽can hurt us when taking tests and especially when encoding new learning.
Taken together, there鈥檚 increasing evidence that the presence and usage of cell phone in the classroom鈥攚hile not necessarily detrimental in all contexts鈥攕hould be carefully monitored, intentionally structured, and even restricted in some cases.