Analysis of Smartphone Usage in High Schools: A Debate

This essay examines the ongoing debate regarding smartphone usage in high schools. It explores the arguments for and against allowing mobile phones in the classroom, considering factors such as student distraction, cyberbullying, and the potential for educational benefits. The paper discusses various research findings, including the impact of smartphones on face-to-face communication, the addictive nature of phone usage, and the effects on student focus and memory. It also presents arguments in favor of smartphone use, such as staying in contact with parents, accessing mental health resources, and utilizing learning applications. The essay concludes by suggesting that, while there are valid concerns, the advantages of allowing smartphone use in schools often outweigh the disadvantages, emphasizing the importance of teaching students safe online practices. It references multiple studies and perspectives to provide a balanced analysis of this complex issue.

Running head: COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Communication Studies
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1COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Should usage of cell phones in school hours be allowed? It is a question that a lot of
researchers are debating about and a lot of parents and students have asked themselves.
Invention of smart phones have started debate for majority of the schools worldwide. There
are already certain schools that have accepted the usage of smart phones but they experience
significant level of frustration over them (Hysing et al., 2015). However, it is to note that
there are several different reasons for and against the usage of smart phones in high schools
during the school hours and this paper shall elaborate on discussing about whether high
schools should ban smartphone usage during the school hours or not.
Today, teachers and parents have similar concerns regarding safety and cyberbullying
along with the issue of technology distracting the students from schoolwork. According to (),
smart phones are very easily used at an expense of face to face communication. Today,
teenagers message and avoid the challenging conversation due to the usage of smartphones.
With the same, the apps and messages present in smart phones often prompt the release of
“dopamine”, which further results in the creation of addiction. Kafyulilo (2014) too in this
context have claimed that the presence of phone surrounding a person consumes the total
attention even when t is not checked. As per the study of Cowan (2015), it has been found
that “human beings have reduced working memory capacity and fluid intelligence when their
phone is upside down and silent on their desk as compared to when it is in any other room”.
Notwithstanding this fact, Haug et al. (2015) in this context have argued in for the
usage of smart phones. As per him, there are certain benefits too that have the possibilities of
overweighing the risks of safety and cyberbullying and technology distracting the students
from schoolwork. Some of these benefits include staying in contact with the parents,
accessing to the mental health text lines as well as exploring out more learning opportunities.
He have further opined that regardless of any kind of ban, students would continuously learn
with their phones in the off-campus, during their tertiary education as well as in their

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workplace or professional learning. With the same, if students desire to investigate, research,
collect data and information, receive feedbacks, communicate and record media with their
peers in and beyond their classroom, usage of smart phone applications are ideal.
Furthermore, Tossell (2015) have claimed that smart phones should not be banned in the
schools as of the fact that it is very important for educating the children to live well in the
modern era where they are growing up. In contemporary world, having the ability of copying
works off the blackboard into exercise copy is not the skill that the modern employers are
searching or looking for. Instead, today, getting good education is all about knowing to make
use of technology for learning, communicating and working with ideas. There are several
other researches that demonstrates that quality, empowering and selective usage of
technology supports new opportunities of learning as well as the potential of students for
developing their skills that they would need for their careers.
Teachers have always been the most vocal regarding the usage of smart phones in
classrooms. As per them “students with cell phones are disinterested and also disturb other
students in the classroom” (Dietz & Henrich, 2014). Video games, social networking sites,
music players etc. are the things that the students tend to be more interested in. With the
same, Stowell (2015) in this context, in against of using cell phones during school hours,
have claimed that smartphones encourages students to cheat in their examinations. Smart
phones already come with internet facilities in them and this means that the students could
easily get the answers to the questions in their examinations, quizzes etc. Also, smartphones
come with inbuilt cameras on them and these cameras could be used for taking embarrassing
photos of other students in the locker room or washrooms and then, could be easily circulated
among the others that would further lead to bullying and black mailings.
On the other hand, Lee et al. (2017) have claimed that in the case of emergency,
parents could get in touch with their children immediately and this is where the smart phones

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are of great help. They are assured that their children are just one call away from them and
this is a great sense of security of the parents as well as for the children. Also, smartphones
can help them in their studies as there are many applications like organizer, camera and
calculator etc. They could make use of cameras for taking the pictures of the diagrams and
projects taught by the teachers in the classrooms and this further saves the time of the
students to draw them in their exercise book and can focus on what teachers is explaining
about the project or diagram (Shrivastava & Shrivastava, 2014). Also, there are several
smartphones that have the capacity of holding the whole e-books, research papers, pdf files
etc. that could benefit the students is significant way. Also, it should be noted that banning
the students from making use of smartphones is a “1950s repose to a 2018 state of play”.
Using smart phone is a complicated social activity and taking the phones away is likely
resulting to hidden usage of it by the teens. This will further exacerbate the issues like
cyberbullying that the people in against of phone usage are trying to address.
It is also to mention that in support of allowing the usage of smartphones in the
classroom is that it helps the students in getting hold of the new processes and methods of
learning early on in their lives as the phone or e-education is supposed to be the future of
current education. Smartphones usually have several advantages such as portability, instant
internet access etc. and this gives the learners the opportunity of learning “anytime” and
“anywhere”. In the year 2007, the public schools of North Carolina gave away the
QUALCOMM mobile phones for enhancing the skills of mathematics of their “at-risk” 9th
grade learners. With the same, there are many universities that are making plans to make test
papers available to their students via their smart phones along with the other preparatory
assignments. This is why, allowing students to use smartphones with them is really
advantageous for their learning and education.

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Hence, there are several pros and cons of allowing the high school students to make
use of smartphones during school hours. Mobile phones indeed serve several important
functions. Digital literacy is an important aspect of schooling people and researches have
shown that cell phones could play a significant role in the support of such learning. It is really
important for the students to learn with these devices in order to ensure that they can
participate in the workforce effectively. Smartphones provide a connection in between the
parents and their children that has a significant role to play to ensure their safety. Also, from
the above analysis it is to conclude that as far as the debate on the usage of smart phones in
the high schools is concerned, it has been seen that the advantages of using smart phones in
school hours overweigh the disadvantages that it carries. It is just that teachers have a
significant role to teach the learners to be safe online.

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References:
Cowan, N. (2015). Working Memory Capacity: Classic Edition. Routledge..
Dietz, S., & Henrich, C. (2014). Texting as a distraction to learning in college
students. Computers in Human behavior, 36, 163-167.
Haug, S., Castro, R. P., Kwon, M., Filler, A., Kowatsch, T., & Schaub, M. P. (2015).
Smartphone use and smartphone addiction among young people in
Switzerland. Journal of behavioral addictions, 4(4), 299-307.
Hysing, M., Pallesen, S., Stormark, K. M., Jakobsen, R., Lundervold, A. J., & Sivertsen, B.
(2015). Sleep and use of electronic devices in adolescence: results from a large
population-based study. BMJ open, 5(1), e006748.
Kafyulilo, A. (2014). Access, use and perceptions of teachers and students towards mobile
phones as a tool for teaching and learning in Tanzania. Education and Information
Technologies, 19(1), 115-127
Lee, S., Kim, M. W., McDonough, I. M., Mendoza, J. S., & Kim, M. S. (2017). The Effects
of Cell Phone Use and Emotion‐regulation Style on College Students'
Learning. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31(3), 360-366.
Shrivastava, A., & Shrivastava, M. (2014). Classroom distraction due to mobile phones usage
by students: College teachers’ perceptions. International Journal of Computer and
Information Technology, 3(3), 638-642.
Stowell, J. R. (2015). Use of clickers vs. mobile devices for classroom polling. Computers &
Education, 82, 329-334.

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Tossell, C. C., Kortum, P., Shepard, C., Rahmati, A., & Zhong, L. (2015). You can lead a
horse to water but you cannot make him learn: Smartphone use in higher
education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(4), 713-724.