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Do phones belong in schools.

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Bans may help protect classroom focus, but districts need to stay mindful of students’ sense of connection, experts say

Students around the world are being separated from their phones.

In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 77 percent of U.S. schools had moved to prohibit cellphones for nonacademic purposes. In September 2018, French lawmakers outlawed cellphone use for schoolchildren under the age of 15. In China, phones were banned country-wide for schoolchildren last year.

Supporters of these initiatives have cited links between smartphone use and bullying and social isolation and the need to keep students focused on schoolwork.

77% Of U.S. schools moved to ban cellphones for nonacademic purposes as of 2020, according to the National Center for Education Statistics

But some Harvard experts say instructors and administrators should consider learning how to teach with tech instead of against it, in part because so many students are still coping with academic and social disruptions caused by the pandemic. At home, many young people were free to choose how and when to use their phones during learning hours. Now, they face a school environment seeking to take away their main source of connection.

“Returning back to in-person, I think it was hard to break the habit,” said Victor Pereira, a lecturer on education and co-chair of the Teaching and Teaching Leadership Program at the Graduate School of Education.

Through their students, he and others with experience both in the classroom and in clinical settings have seen interactions with technology blossom into important social connections that defy a one-size-fits-all mindset. “Schools have been coming back, trying to figure out, how do we readjust our expectations?” Pereira added.

It’s a hard question, especially in the face of research suggesting that the mere presence of a smartphone can undercut learning .

Michael Rich , an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says that phones and school don’t mix: Students can’t meaningfully absorb information while also texting, scrolling, or watching YouTube videos.

“The human brain is incapable of thinking more than one thing at a time,” he said. “And so what we think of as multitasking is actually rapid-switch-tasking. And the problem with that is that switch-tasking may cover a lot of ground in terms of different subjects, but it doesn’t go deeply into any of them.”

Pereira’s approach is to step back — and to ask whether a student who can’t resist the phone is a signal that the teacher needs to work harder on making a connection. “Two things I try to share with my new teachers are, one, why is that student on the phone? What’s triggering getting on your cell phone versus jumping into our class discussion, or whatever it may be? And then that leads to the second part, which is essentially classroom management.

“Design better learning activities, design learning activities where you consider how all of your students might want to engage and what their interests are,” he said. He added that allowing phones to be accessible can enrich lessons and provide opportunities to use technology for school-related purposes.

Mesfin Awoke Bekalu, a research scientist in the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Chan School, argues that more flexible classroom policies can create opportunities for teaching tech-literacy and self-regulation.

“There is a huge, growing body of literature showing that social media platforms are particularly helpful for people who need resources or who need support of some kind, beyond their proximate environment,” he said. A study he co-authored by Rachel McCloud and Vish Viswanath for the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness shows that this is especially true for marginalized groups such as students of color and LGBTQ students. But the findings do not support a free-rein policy, Bekalu stressed.

In the end, Rich, who noted the particular challenges faced by his patients with attention-deficit disorders and other neurological conditions, favors a classroom-by-classroom strategy. “It can be managed in a very local way,” he said, adding: “It’s important for parents, teachers, and the kids to remember what they are doing at any point in time and focus on that. It’s really only in mono-tasking that we do very well at things.”

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Do smartphones belong in classrooms? Four scholars weigh in

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Louis-Philippe Beland receives funding from SSHRC insight grant and SSHRC insight development grant.

Arnold Lewis Glass, Daniel G. Krutka, and Sarah Rose do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Should smartphones be allowed in classrooms? A new report from UNESCO , the education arm of the United Nations, raises questions about the practice. Though smartphones can be used for educational purposes, the report says the devices also disrupt classroom learning, expose students to cyberbullying and can compromise students’ privacy.

About 1 in 7 countries globally, such as the Netherlands and France , have banned the use of smartphones in school – and academic performance improved as a result, particularly for low-performing students, the report notes.

As school leaders in the U.S. wrestle with whether or not to ban smartphones , The Conversation has invited four scholars to weigh in on the issue.

Daniel G. Krutka: Use smartphones to encourage ‘technoskepticism’

While the issue of smartphone use in schools is complicated, evidence suggests that spending more time on smartphones is associated with young people being less happy and less satisfied with life .

Technology scholars have long argued that the key to living well with technology is in finding limits. However, in banning smartphones, I worry educators might be missing opportunities to use smartphones to encourage what I and other researchers refer to as technoskeptical thinking ; that is, questioning our relationship with technology.

For example, students might be encouraged to consider the benefits and drawbacks of using navigational apps to travel from one place to another, as opposed to old-fashioned paper maps. Or, students might explore their social media feeds to critique what algorithms feed them, or how notifications get their attention.

In my research , I have looked at how teachers can encourage students to go on techno-fasts – that is, abstaining from the use of technology for a certain period of time. This, I argue, will give students time to reflect on the time they spend away from their devices .

Policy debates often focus on whether or not to put smartphones out of reach during the school day. But I believe educators might find it more beneficial to make the phones an object of inquiry.

A group of kids in a classroom looks at a phone.

Sarah Rose: Consult parents, teachers and students

While there is evidence that classroom phone usage can be a distraction , it can also promote engagement and learning . While research about the potential positive and negative consequences of classroom phones can be used to inform school phone policies, the views of those who are most directly impacted by the policies should also be taken into account.

The views of parents matter because their views may influence the extent to which their children follow the policy. The views of children matter because they are the ones being expected to follow the policy and to benefit from it. The views of teachers matter because they are often the ones that have to enforce the policies. Research shows that enforcing cellphone policies is not always a straightforward issue .

In my research, I have found that children – aged 10 and 11 years old – in collaboration with their parents, were able to come up with ideas for ideal policies and solutions to help enforce them. For example, one parent-child pair suggested mobile phone use in school could be banned but that a role of “telephone monitor” could be given to an older pupil. This “telephone monitor” would have a class mobile phone that children and parents could use to contact each other during the school day when necessary.

This recommendation reflected how parents and middle and high school students – whether from rural and urban areas – felt cellphones were important to keep in touch with each other during the school day. Beyond safety, children and parents also told us that phones were important for keeping in touch about changing plans and for emotional support during the school day.

I believe policies that simply ban phones in schools may be missing an opportunity to educate children about responsible mobile device use. When parents and children are involved in policy development, it has the potential to increase the extent to which these policies are followed and enforced.

A group of kids in a classroom look at their phone.

Arnold L. Glass: Cellphone use in college lectures hurts performance in ways that are hard to see

The intrusion of internet-enabled electronic devices, such as laptops, tablets and cellphones, has transformed the modern college lecture. Students now divide their attention between the lecture and their devices. Classroom studies reveal that when college students use an electronic device for a nonacademic purpose during class, it hurts their performance on exams .

When attention is divided between an electronic device and the classroom lecture, it does not reduce comprehension of the lecture – at least, not when measured by within-class quizzes. Instead, divided attention reduces long-term retention of the classroom lecture, which hurts performance on unit exams and final exams.

When some students open electronic devices, it also negatively affects the performance of all the students around them . Research has shown that student performance on final exams was worse when electronic devices were permitted during classes that covered exam material versus when the devices were not.

Many students won’t think their divided attention is affecting their retention of new information. It may not be for the moment, but a couple of weeks later or down the line, research shows , it does.

Louis-Philippe Beland: Bans help low-achieving students the most

Numerous studies indicate that low-achieving students stand to benefit the most from the implementation of mobile phone bans in schools.

In a 2015 study, my co-author, Richard Murphy , and I examined the impact of banning mobile phones on student performance in high schools, using data from England. By comparing schools with phone bans to similar schools without the bans, we isolated the effect of mobile phones on performance. Our study found that banning mobile phones significantly increased test scores among 16-year-old students. The effect is equivalent to adding five days to the school year or an extra hour per week. Low-achieving students benefited more, while high-achieving students remained unaffected.

Similar studies in Spain and Norway using a similar approach demonstrated compelling evidence supporting the benefits of banning mobile phones. In Spain, grades improved and bullying incidents decreased. In Norway, the ban raised middle school students’ grade-point averages and their likelihood of attending academic high schools while reducing bullying. Evidence from Belgium suggests banning mobile phones can be beneficial for college student performance.

Psychological research sheds light on potential mechanisms behind the impact of mobile phones and technology on student performance. Multitasking, common with mobile phone use, has been found to hinder learning and task execution . Taking notes by hand has been shown to better enhance memory retention compared to typing on a computer.

In sum, banning mobile phones in schools can yield positive effects, improve academic performance and narrow the achievement gap between high- and low-achieving students. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that mobile phones and technology can also be valuable educational tools when used appropriately.

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research on cell phones in the classroom

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Cellphones in Schools: A Huge Nuisance and a Powerful Teaching Tool

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When Nelann Taylor lets her high school students whip out their smartphones and dive into tools like Duolingo, Quizlet, Kahoot, and Flipgrid, she knows she may be in for a classroom management headache. Some of her students “have really figured out how to self-correct and just say, ‘Well, I know that I can’t be on my own phone right now’ ” unless it is for classwork, she said. But others take advantage of the freedom to start scrolling through text messages, and Taylor has to tell them put the devices away. Cellphones are both a powerful learning tool and huge distractions for kids. Figuring out how to make the most of them is “really tricky,” said Taylor, a fan of technology in the classroom who teaches high school Spanish and web design in Louisiana’s St. John the Baptist Parish Schools. “It’s always a work in progress.” Educators like Taylor have struggled with whether to ban phones, let kids use them for classwork, or some combination of the two for more than a decade. But the need to figure out how to use cellphones for learning, rather than letting them become a distraction, has gotten more urgent since kids returned from pandemic-driven virtual learning, experts and educators say. “I think the transition from trying to learn at home using devices and having perhaps multiple devices, being distracted by them, trying to focus attention on learning, and then transition back into the classroom has been really difficult,” said Christine Elgersma, the senior editor for social media and learning resources at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that focuses on children, technology, and media. There are some good practices, including having a schoolwide policy on devices that’s clearly communicated to students and parents at the beginning of the school year. Being vehemently anti-cellphone may backfire, Elgersma warned. Allowing kids to use the devices for classwork is a way to acknowledge that, “these are really cool tools, and that some of what kids are doing on their phones is really impressive and creative and important to them,” she said. “We don’t want to discount how woven into the fabric of their lives these devices are.” At Kansas’ Springhill Middle School, students are expected to put their phones in their lockers as soon as school begins, and not take them out until the end of the day, unless a teacher plans to use the devices in a lesson, said Trevor Goertzen, the school’s principal. A National Association of Secondary School Principals digital principal of the year, Goertzen is a champion of tech in the classroom. But he thinks it’s too easy for kids to get distracted by entertainment or social media if they have access to their phones all day. All his students have MacBooks, he said, which can be used for just about any classroom activity requiring a device. Teachers have permission to allow cellphones occasionally for specific purposes, but “most teachers realize it’s not worth opening the door for them to use their phones.”

‘Teach kids to manage their technology’

But Stevie Frank, a 5th grade humanities teacher at Zionsville West Middle School in Whitestown, Ind., views cellphones as a great student engagement tool. Her students can keep their phones with them during class, as long as they have notifications turned off, so they’re not interrupted by a dinging noise. And she incorporates them into her class assignments. For instance, Frank sets up stations around the room where kids read passages and tackle questions on, say, an author’s purpose. To check to see if their answers are right, students use their phones to scan a QR code, and up pops a video of Frank explaining the correct answer. “It’s one of those things where I was like, ‘How can I be at 12 stations at once?’ ” Frank said. “And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I can!’ ” Frank’s students also use their phones to record podcasts, since they tend to have better microphones than school-issued devices do. Recently, for instance, she had groups of students choose books about different identities and then create a podcast exploring themes that the text raised. One group picked a book about a person experiencing homelessness and interviewed a staffer at a local shelter for their podcast. Naturally, there are times when students use their cellphones to go off task, Frank said. But that’s all part of the lesson. She said kids need to figure out how to voluntarily distance themselves from their devices. “You’ve got to teach the kids how to manage their technology and if we’re not going to do it in school, where’s it going to be done?” Frank said. A certified yoga teacher, she’s talked to her students about mindfulness, the importance of being present in the moment, and how technology can distract from those things. If a kid has a particularly tough time putting their phone away, or keeps getting distracted while using a school laptop, Frank will ask if they’d rather have a paper copy of the assignment, or if they’d like to put their phone on their desk. Giving students the choice to disengage from their phones helps “get their buy-in,” Frank said. “They’re like, ‘yup, I need to do that.’ ” Another advantage of using a phone for class assignments: Students are already familiar with how they operate, said Kristin Daley Conti, a science teacher at Tantasqua Regional Junior High School in central Massachusetts. Her attitude on cellphones in school is essentially, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” So if her students want to use their phones to, say, time how long it takes ice to melt, she’s fine with that. Many of her students also used the cameras on their phones for a project last year on ecosystems. Students chose an outdoor area near the school and took pictures of the spot once a week, then looked at how the biodiversity in its ecosystem changed over time. Students snapped photos of flowers, squirrels, plants, insects, frogs, and more and then shared them in a digital journal that was also accessible to parents. Daley Conti’s advice to teachers who are considering using cellphones in their classroom: Listen to kids’ ideas. Ask them questions like, “Do you think we’re using our phones too much?” or “Could we use our phones in class responsibly?” “If you’re thinking about incorporating cellphone use, hear from the experts,” she said.

A version of this article appeared in the March 23, 2022 edition of Education Week as Cellphones in Schools: Huge Nuisance And Powerful Teaching

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There’s a Cell Phone in Your Student’s Head

A 2017 study found that cell phones that were turned off and stashed away silently reasserted themselves—distracting working students anyway.

Many studies have investigated the so-called “downstream” effect of cell phone presence on learning. Students who split their attention between a learning task and texting on their cell phones or accessing Facebook , for example, perform poorly when compared to students who are not dividing their attention.

But  recent research  from the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research suggests that cell phones might have a negative “upstream” impact 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.

“The presence of one’s smartphone enables on-demand access to information, entertainment... and more,” the study concludes. “However, our research suggests that these benefits—and the dependence they engender—may come at a cognitive cost.” A bevy of other studies, meanwhile, clearly indicate that environments or activities that  divide our attention  can hurt us when taking tests and especially when encoding new learning. Taken together, there’s increasing evidence that the presence and usage of cell phone in the classroom—while not necessarily detrimental in all contexts—should be carefully monitored, intentionally structured, and even restricted in some cases.

Why Schools Should Ban Cell Phones in the Classroom—and Why Parents Have to Help

New study shows it takes a young brain 20 minutes to refocus after using a cell phone in a classroom

Photo: A zoomed in photo shows a young student discretely using their cell phone under their desk as they sit in the classroom.

Photo by skynesher/iStock

Parents, the next time you are about to send a quick trivial text message to your students while they’re at school—maybe sitting in a classroom—stop. And think about this: it might take them only 10 seconds to respond with a thumbs-up emoji, but their brain will need 20 minutes to refocus on the algebra or history or physics lesson in front of them— 20 minutes .

That was just one of the many findings in a recent report from a 14-country study by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) that prompted this headline in the Washington Post : “Schools should ban smartphones. Parents should help.” The study recommends a ban on smartphones at school for students of all ages, and says the data are unequivocal, showing that countries that enforce restrictions see improved academic performance and less bullying.

It’s a fraught debate, one that prompts frustration among educators, who say students are less focused than ever as schools struggle to enforce cell phone limitation policies, and rage from some parents, worrying about a possible shooting when they can’t get in touch, who insist they need to be able to reach their children at all times. And, perhaps surprisingly, it prompts a collective yawn from students.

In fact, students openly admit their cell phones distract them and that they focus better in school without them, says Joelle Renstrom , a senior lecturer in rhetoric at Boston University’s College of General Studies. It’s an issue she has studied for years. She even performed an experiment with her students that supports what she long suspected: Cell Phones + Classrooms = Bad Learning Environment.

BU Today spoke with Renstrom about the latest study and research.

with Joelle Renstrom

Bu today: let me get right to the point. do we as a society need to be better about restricting cell phones in classrooms it seems so obvious..

Renstrom: Of course. But it is easier said than done. It’s hard to be consistent. We will always have students with some kind of reason, or a note from someone, that gives them access to technology. And then it becomes hard to explain why some people can have it and some people can’t. But student buy-in to the idea is important.

BU Today: But is getting students to agree more important than getting schools and parents to agree? Is it naive to think that students are supposed to follow the rules that we as parents and teachers set for them?

Renstrom: I have made the case before that addiction to phones is kind of like second-hand smoking. If you’re young and people around you are using it, you are going to want it, too. Every baby is like that. They want to reach for it, it’s flashing, their parents are on it all the time. Students openly acknowledge they are addicted. Their digital lives are there. But they also know there is this lack of balance in their lives. I do think buy-in is important. But do it as an experiment. Did it work? What changes did it make? Did it make you anxious or distracted during those 50 minutes in class? I did that for years. I surveyed students for a number of semesters; how do you feel about putting your phone in a pouch? They made some predictions and said what they thought about how annoying it was. But at the end, they talked about how those predictions [played out], and whether they were better able to focus. It was very, very clear they were better able to focus. Also interestingly, not a single student left during class to get a drink or go to the bathroom. They had been 100 percent doing that just so they could use their phone.

BU Today: Should we be talking about this question, cell phones in classrooms, for all ages, middle school all the way through college? Or does age matter?

Renstrom: It’s never going to be universal. Different families, different schools. And there is, on some level, a safety issue. I do not blame parents for thinking, if there’s someone with a gun in school, I need a way to reach my kids. What if all the phones are in pouches when someone with a gun comes in? It’s crazy that we even have to consider that.

BU Today: What’s one example of something that can be changed easily?

Renstrom: Parents need to stop calling their kids during the day. Stop doing that. What you are doing is setting that kid up so that they are responding to a bot 24-7 when they shouldn’t be. If you’re a kid who gets a text from your parent in class, you are conditioned to respond and to know that [the parent] expects a response. It adds so much anxiety to people’s lives. It all just ends up in this anxiety loop. When kids are in school, leave them alone. Think about what that phone is actually meant for. When you gave them a phone, you said it’s in case of an emergency or if you need to be picked up in a different place. Make those the parameters. If it’s just to confirm, “I’m still picking you up at 3,” then no, don’t do that. Remember when we didn’t have to confirm? There is a time and place for this, for all technology.

BU Today: This latest study, how do you think people will react to it?

Renstrom: This isn’t new. How many studies have to come out to say that cured meat is terrible and is carcinogenic. People are like, “Oh, don’t tell me what to eat. Or when to be on my phone.” This gets real contentious, real fast because telling people what’s good for them is hard.

BU Today: I can understand that—but in this case we’re not telling adults to stop being on their phones. We’re saying help get your kids off their phones in classrooms, for their health and education.

Renstrom: Studies show kids’ brains, and their gray matter, are low when they are on screens. School is prime habit-forming time. You should not sit in class within view of the professor, laughing while they are talking about World War II. There is a social appropriateness that needs to be learned. Another habit that needs to be addressed is the misconception of multitasking. We are under this misconception we all can do it. And we can’t. You might think, I can listen to this lecture while my sister texts me. That is not supported by science or studies. It is literally derailing you. Your brain jumps off to another track and has to get back on. If you think you have not left that first track, you are wrong.

BU Today: So what next steps would you like to see?

Renstrom: I would like to see both schools and families be more assertive about this. But also to work together. If the parents are anti-smartphone policy, it doesn’t matter if the school is pro-policy. If there is a war between parents and schools, I am not sure much will happen. Some kind of intervention and restriction is better than just ripping it away from kids. The UNESCO study found it is actually even worse for university students. We are all coming at this problem from all different ways. Pouches or banned phones. Or nothing.

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Doug Most is a lifelong journalist and author whose career has spanned newspapers and magazines up and down the East Coast, with stops in Washington, D.C., South Carolina, New Jersey, and Boston. He was named Journalist of the Year while at The Record in Bergen County, N.J., for his coverage of a tragic story about two teens charged with killing their newborn. After a stint at Boston Magazine , he worked for more than a decade at the Boston Globe in various roles, including magazine editor and deputy managing editor/special projects. His 2014 nonfiction book, The Race Underground , tells the story of the birth of subways in America and was made into a PBS/American Experience documentary. He has a BA in political communication from George Washington University. Profile

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Mobile phones: The effect of its presence on learning and memory

Clarissa Theodora Tanil

Department of Psychology, Sunway University, Selangor, Malaysia

Min Hooi Yong

Associated data.

All relevant data are within the manuscript.

Our aim was to examine the effect of a smartphone’s presence on learning and memory among undergraduates. A total of 119 undergraduates completed a memory task and the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS). As predicted, those without smartphones had higher recall accuracy compared to those with smartphones. Results showed a significant negative relationship between phone conscious thought, “how often did you think about your phone”, and memory recall but not for SAS and memory recall. Phone conscious thought significantly predicted memory accuracy. We found that the presence of a smartphone and high phone conscious thought affects one’s memory learning and recall, indicating the negative effect of a smartphone proximity to our learning and memory.

Introduction

Smartphones are a popular communication form worldwide in this century and likely to remain as such, especially among adolescents [ 1 ]. The phone has evolved from basic communicative functions–calls only–to being a computer-replacement device, used for web browsing, games, instant communication on social media platforms, and work-related productivity tools, e.g. word processing. Smartphones undoubtedly keep us connected; however, many individuals are now obsessed with them [ 2 , 3 ]. This obsession can lead to detrimental cognitive functions and mood/affective states, but these effects are still highly debated among researchers.

Altmann, Trafton, and Hambrick suggested that as little as a 3-second distraction (e.g. reaching for a cell phone) is adequate to disrupt attention while performing a cognitive task [ 4 ]. This distraction is disadvantageous to subsequent cognitive tasks, creating more errors as the distraction period increases, and this is particularly evident in classroom settings. While teachers and parents are for [ 5 ] or against cell phones in classrooms [ 6 ], empirical evidence showed that students who used their phones in class took fewer notes [ 7 ] and had poorer overall academic performance, compared to those who did not [ 8 , 9 ]. Students often multitask in classrooms and even more so with smartphones in hand. One study showed no significant difference in in-class test scores, regardless of whether they were using instant messaging [ 10 ]. However, texters took a significantly longer time to complete the in-class test, suggesting that texters required more cognitive effort in memory recall [ 10 ]. Other researchers have posited that simply the presence of a cell phone may have detrimental effects on learning and memory as well. Research has shown that a mobile phone left next to the participant while completing a task, is a powerful distractor even when not in use [ 11 , 12 ]. Their findings showed that mobile phone participants could perform similarly to control groups on simple versions of specific tasks (e.g. visual spatial search, digit cancellation), but performed much poorer in the demanding versions. In another study, researchers controlled for the location of the smartphone by taking the smartphones away from participants (low salience, LS), left the smartphone next to them (high salience/HS), or kept the smartphones in bags or pockets (control) [ 13 ]. Results showed that participants in LS condition performed significantly better compared to HS, while no difference was established between control and HS conditions. Taken together, these findings confirmed that the smartphone is a distractor even when not in use. Further, smartphone presence also increases cognitive load, because greater cognitive effort is required to inhibit distractions.

Reliance on smartphones has been linked to a form of psychological dependency, and this reliance has detrimental effect on our affective ‘mood’ states. For example, feelings of anxiety when one is separated from their smartphones can interfere with the ability to attend to information. Cheever et al. observed that heavy and moderate mobile phone users reported increased anxiety when their mobile phone was taken away as early as 10 minutes into the experiment [ 14 ]. They noted that high mobile phone usage was associated with higher risk of experiencing ‘nomophobia’ (no mobile phone phobia), a form of anxiety characterized by constantly thinking about one’s own mobile phones and the desire to stay in contact with the device [ 15 ]. Other studies reported similar separation-anxiety and other unpleasant thoughts in participants when their smartphones were taken away [ 16 ] or the usage was prohibited [ 17 , 18 ]. Participants also reported having frequent thoughts about their smartphones, despite their device being out of sight briefly (kept in bags or pockets), to the point of disrupting their task performance [ 13 ]. Taken together, these findings suggest that strong attachment towards a smartphone has immediate and lasting negative effects on mood and appears to induce anxiety.

Further, we need to consider the relationship between cognition and emotion to understand how frequent mobile phone use affects memory e.g. memory consolidation. Some empirical findings have shown that anxious individuals have attentional biases toward threats and that these biases affect memory consolidation [ 19 , 20 ]. Further, emotion-cognition interaction affects efficiency of specific cognitive functions, and that one’s affective state may enhance or hinder these functions rapidly, flexibly, and reversibly [ 21 ]. Studies have shown that positive affect improves visuospatial attention [ 22 ], sustained attention [ 23 ], and working memory [ 24 ]. The researchers attributed positive affect in participants’ improved controlled cognitive processing and less inhibitory control. On the other hand, participants’ negative affect had fewer spatial working memory errors [ 23 ] and higher cognitive failures [ 25 ]. Yet, in all of these studies–the direction of modulation, intensity, valence of experiencing a specific affective state ranged widely and primarily driven by external stimuli (i.e. participants affective states were induced from watching videos), which may not have the same motivational effect generated internally.

Present study

Prior studies have demonstrated the detrimental effects of one’s smartphone on cognitive function (e.g. working memory [ 13 ], visual spatial search [ 12 ], attention [ 11 ]), and decreased cognitive ability with increasing attachment to one’s phone [ 14 , 16 , 26 ]. Further, past studies have demonstrated the effect of affective state on cognitive performance [ 19 , 20 , 22 – 25 , 27 ]. To our knowledge, no study has investigated the effect of positive or negative affective states resulting from smartphone separation on memory recall accuracy. One study showed that participants reporting an increased level of anxiety as early as 10 minutes [ 14 ]. We also do not know the extent of smartphone addiction and phone conscious thought effects on memory recall accuracy. One in every four young adults is reported to have problematic smartphone use and this is accompanied by poor mental health e.g. higher anxiety, stress, depression [ 28 ]. One report showed that young adults reached for their phones 86 times in a day on average compared to 47 times in other age groups [ 29 ]. Young adults also reported that they “definitely” or “probably” used their phone too much, suggesting that they recognised their problematic smartphone use.

We had two main aims in this study. First, we replicated [ 13 ] to determine whether ‘phone absent’ (LS) participants had higher memory accuracy compared to the ‘phone present’ (HS). Second, we predicted that participants with higher smartphone addiction scores (SAS) and higher phone conscious thought were more likely to have lower memory accuracy. With regards to separation from their smartphone, we hypothesised that LS participants will experience an increase of negative affect or a decrease in positive affect and that this will affect memory recall negatively. We will also examine whether these predictor variables–smartphone addiction, phone conscious thought and affect differences—predict memory accuracy.

Materials and methods

Participants.

A total of 119 undergraduate students (61 females, M age = 20.67 years, SD age = 2.44) were recruited from a private university in an Asian capital city. To qualify for this study, the participant must own a smartphone and does not have any visual or auditory deficiencies. Using G*Power v. 3.1.9.2 [ 30 ], we require at least 76 participants with an effect size of d = .65, α = .05 and power of (1-β) = .8 based on Thornton et al.’s [ 11 ] study, or 128 participants from Ward’s study [ 13 ].

Out of 119 participants, 43.7% reported using their smartphone mostly for social networking, followed by communication (31.1%) and entertainment (17.6%) (see Table 1 for full details on smartphone usage). Participants reported an average smartphone use of 8.16 hours in a day ( SD = 4.05). There was no significant difference between daily smartphone use for participants in the high salience (HS) and low salience groups (LS), t (117) = 1.42, p = .16, Cohen’s d = .26. Female participants spent more time using their smartphones over a 24-hour period ( M = 9.02, SD = 4.10) compared to males, ( M = 7.26, SD = 3.82), t (117) = 2.42, p = .02, Cohen’s d = .44.

Ethical approval and informed consent

The study was conducted in accordance with the protocol approved by the Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee at Sunway University (approval code: 20171090). All participants provided written consent before commencing the study and were not compensated for their participation in the study.

Study design

Our experimental study was a mixed design, with smartphone presence (present vs absent) as a between-subjects factor, and memory task as a within-subjects factor. Participants who had their smartphone out of sight formed the ‘Absent’ or low-phone salience (LS) condition, and the other group had their smartphone placed next to them throughout the study, ‘Present’ or high-phone salience (HS) condition. The dependent variable was recall accuracy from the memory test.

Working memory span test

A computerized memory span task ‘Operation Span (OS)’ retrieved from software Wadsworth CogLab 2.0 was used to assess working memory [ 31 ]. A working memory span test was chosen as a measure to test participants’ memory ability for two reasons. First, participants were required to learn and memorize three types of stimuli thus making this task complex. Second, the duration of task completion took approximately 20 minutes. This was advantageous because we wanted to increase separation-anxiety [ 16 ] as well as having the most pronounced effect on learning and memory without the presence of their smartphone [ 9 ].

The test comprised of three stimulus types, namely words (long words such as computer, refrigerator and short words like pen, cup), letters (similar sound E, P, B, and non-similar sound D, H, L) and digits (1 to 9). The test began by showing a sequence of items on the left side of the screen, with each item presented for one second. After that, participants were required to recall the stimulus from a 9-button box located on the right side of the screen. In order to respond correctly, participants were required to click on the buttons for the items in the corresponding order they were presented. A correct response increases the length of stimulus presented by one item (for each stimulus category), while an incorrect response decreases the length of the stimulus by one item. Each trial began with five stimuli and increased or decreased depending on the participants’ performance. The minimum length possible was one while the maximum was ten. Each test comprised of 25 trials with no time limit and without breaks between trials. Working memory ability was measured through the number of correct responses over total trials: scores ranged from 0 to 25, with the highest score representing superior working memory.

Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS)

We used PANAS to assess the current mood/affective state of the participants with state/feeling-descriptive statements [ 32 ]. PANAS has ten PA statements e.g. interested, enthusiastic, proud, and ten NA statements e.g. guilty, nervous, hostile. Each statement was measured using a five-point Likert scale ranging from very slightly or not at all to extremely, and then totalled to form overall PA or NA score with higher scores representing higher levels of PA or NA. In the current study, the internal reliability of PANAS was good with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .819, and .874 for PA and NA respectively.

Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS)

SAS is a 33-item self-report scale used to examine participants’ smartphone addiction [ 33 ]. SAS contained six sub-factors; daily-life disturbance that measures the extent to which mobile phone use impairs one’s activities during everyday tasks (5 statements), positive anticipation to describe the excitement of using phone and de-stressing with the use of mobile phone (8 statements), withdrawal refers to the feeling of anxiety when separated from one’s mobile phone (6 statements), cyberspace-oriented relationship refers to one’s opinion on online friendship (7 statements), overuse measures the excessive use of mobile phone to the extent that they have become inseparable from their device (4 statements), and tolerance points to the cognitive effort to control the usage of one’s smartphone (3 statements). Each statement was measured using a six-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and total SAS was identified by totalling all 33 statements. Higher SAS scores represented higher degrees of compulsive smartphone use. In the present study, the internal reliability of SAS was identified with Cronbach's alpha correlation coefficient of .918.

Phone conscious thought and perceived effect on learning

We included a one-item question for phone conscious thought: “During the memory test how often do you think of your smartphone?”. The aim of this question was two-fold; first was to capture endogenous interruption experienced by the separation, and second to complement the smartphone addiction to reflect current immediate experience. Participants rated this item on a scale of one (none to hardly) to seven (all the time). We also included a one-item question on how much they perceived their smartphone use has affected their learning and attention: “In general, how much do you think your smartphone affects your learning performance and attention span?”. This item was similarly rated on a scale of one (not at all) to seven (very much).

We randomly assigned participants to one of two conditions: low-phone salience (LS) and high-phone salience (HS). Participants were tested in groups of three to six people in a university computer laboratory and seated two seats apart from each other to prevent communication. Each group was assigned to the same experimental condition to ensure similar environmental conditions. Participants in the HS condition were asked to place their smartphone on the left side of the table with the screen facing down. LS participants were asked to hand their smartphone to the researcher at the start of the study and the smartphones were kept on the researcher’s table throughout the task at a distance between 50cm to 300cm from the participants depending on their seat location, and located out of sight behind a small panel on the table.

At the start of the experiment, participants were briefed on the rules in the experimental lab, such as no talking and no smartphone use (for HS only). Participants were also instructed to silence their smartphones. They filled in the consent form and demographic form before completing the PANAS questionnaire. They were then directed to CogLab software and began the working memory test. Upon completion, participants were asked to complete the PANAS again followed by the SAS, phone conscious thought, and their perception of their phone use on their learning performance and attention span. The researcher thanked the participants and returned the smartphones (LS condition only) at the end of the task.

Statistical analysis

We examined for normality in our data using the Shapiro-Wilk results and visual inspection of the histogram. For the normally distributed data, we analysed our data using independent-sample t -test for comparison between groups (HS or LS), paired-sample t test for within groups (e.g. before and after phone separation), and Pearson r for correlation. Non-normally distributed or ranked data were analysed using Spearman rho for correlation.

Preliminary analyses

Our female participants reported using their smartphone significantly longer than males, and so we examined the effects of gender on memory recall accuracy. We found no significant difference between males and females on memory recall accuracy, t (117) = .18, p = .86, Cohen’s d = .03. Subsequently, data were collapsed, analysed and reported on in the aggregate.

Smartphone presence and memory recall accuracy

An independent-sample t- test was used to examine whether participants’ performance on a working memory task was influenced by the presence (HS) or absence (LS) of their smartphone. Results showed that participants in the LS condition had higher accuracy ( M = 14.21, SD = 2.61) compared to HS ( M = 13.08, SD = 2.53), t (117) = 2.38, p = .02, Cohen’s d = .44 (see Fig 1 ). The effect size ᶇ 2 = .44 indicates that smartphone presence/salience has a moderate effect on participant working memory ability and a sensitivity power of .66.

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Relationship between Smartphone Addiction Score (SAS), higher phone conscious thought and memory recall accuracy

Sas and memory recal.

We first examined participants’ SAS scores between the two conditions. Results showed no significant difference between the LS (M = 104.64, SD = 24.86) and HS (M = 102.70, SD = 20.45) SAS scores, t (117) = .46, p = .64, Cohen’s d = .09. We predicted that those with higher SAS scores will have lower memory accuracy, and thus we examined the relationship between SAS and memory recall accuracy using Pearson correlation coefficient. Results showed that there was no significant relationship between SAS and memory recall accuracy, r = -.03, n = 119, p = .76. We also examined the SAS scores between the LS and HS groups on memory recall accuracy scores. In the LS group, no significant relationship was established between SAS score and memory accuracy, r = -.04, n = 58, p = .74. Similarly, there was no significant relationship between SAS score and memory accuracy in the HS group, r = .10, n = 61, p = .47. In the event that one SAS subscale may have a larger impact, we examined the relationship between each subscale and memory recall accuracy. Results showed no significant relationship between each sub-factor of SAS scores and memory accuracy, all p s > .12 (see Table 2 ).

Phone conscious thought and memory accuracy

We found a significant negative relationship between phone conscious thought and memory recall accuracy, r S = -.25, n = 119, p = .01. We anticipated a higher phone conscious thought for the LS group since their phone was kept away from them during the task and examined the relationship for each condition. Results showed a significant negative relationship between phone conscious thought and memory accuracy in the HS condition, r S = -.49, n = 61, p = < .001, as well as the LS condition, r S = -.27, n = 58, p = .04.

Affect/mood changes after being separated from their phone

We anticipated that our participants may have experienced either an increase in negative affect (NA) or a decrease in positive affect (PA) after being separated from their phone (LS condition).

We first computed the mean difference (After minus Before) for both positive ‘PA difference’ and negative affect ‘NA difference’. A repeated-measures 2 (Mood change: PA difference, NA difference) x 2 (Conditions: LS, HS) ANOVA was conducted to determine whether there is an interaction between mood change and condition. There was no interaction effect of mood change and condition, F (1, 117) = .38, p = .54, n p 2 = .003. There was a significant effect of Mood change, F (1, 117) = 13.01, p < .001, n p 2 = .10 (see Fig 2 ).

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Subsequent post-hoc analyses showed a significant decrease in participants’ positive affect before ( M = 31.12, SD = 5.79) and after ( M = 29.36, SD = 6.58) completing the memory task in the LS participants, t (57) = 2.48, p = .02, Cohen’s d = .28 but not for the negative affect, Cohen’s d = .07. A similar outcome was also shown in the HS condition, in which there was a significant decrease in positive affect only, t (60) = 3.45, p = .001, Cohen’s d = .37 (see Fig 2 ).

PA/NA difference on memory accuracy

We predicted that LS participants will experience either an increase in NA and/or a decrease in PA since their smartphones were taken away and that this will affect memory recall negatively. Results showed that LS participants who experienced a higher NA difference had poorer memory recall accuracy ( r s = -.394, p = .002). We found no significant relationship between NA difference and memory recall accuracy for HS participants ( r s = -.057, p = .663, n = 61) and no significant relationship for PA difference in both HS ( r s = .217, p = .093) and LS conditions ( r s = .063, p = .638).

Relationship between phone conscious thought, smartphone addiction scale and mood changes to memory recall accuracy

Preliminary analyses were conducted to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, multicollinearity and homoscedasticity. There was a significant positive relationship between SAS scores and phone conscious thought, r S = .25, n = 119, p = .007. Using the enter method, we found that phone conscious thought explained by the model as a whole was 19.9%, R 2 = .20, R 2 Adjusted = .17, F (4, 114) = 7.10, p < .001. Phone conscious thought significantly predicted memory recall accuracy, b = -.63, t (114) = 4.76, p < .001, but not for the SAS score, b = .02, t (114) = 1.72, p = .09, PA difference score, b = .05, t (114) = 1.29, p = .20, and NA difference score, b = .06, t (114) = 1.61, p = .11.

Perception between phone usage and learning

For the participants’ perception of their phone usage on their learning and attention span, we found no significant difference between LS ( M = 4.22, SD = 1.58) and HS participants ( M = 4.07, SD = 1.62), t (117) = .54, p = .59, Cohen’s d = .09. There was also no significant correlation between perceived cognitive interference and memory accuracy, r = .07, p = .47.

We aimed [ 1 ] to examine the effect of smartphone presence on memory recall accuracy and [ 2 ] to investigate the relationship between affective states, phone conscious thought, and smartphone addiction to memory recall accuracy. For the former, our results were consistent with prior studies [ 11 – 13 ] in that participants had lower accuracy when their smartphone was next to them (HS) and higher accuracy when separated from their smartphones (LS). For the latter, we predicted that the short-term separation from their smartphone would evoke some anxiety, identified by either lower PA or higher NA post-test. Our results showed that both groups had experienced a decrease in PA post-test, suggesting that the reduced PA is likely to have stemmed from the prohibited usage (HS) and/or separation from their phone (LS). Our results also showed lower memory recall in the LS group who experienced higher NA providing some evidence that separation from their smartphone does contribute to feelings of anxiety. This is consistent with past studies in which participants reported increased anxiety over time when separated from their phones [ 14 ], or when smartphone usage was prohibited [ 17 ].

We also examined another variable–phone conscious thought–described in past studies [ 11 , 13 ], as a measure of smartphone addiction. Our findings showed that phone conscious thought is negatively correlated to memory recall in both HS and LS groups, and uniquely contributed 19.9% in our regression model. We propose that phone conscious thought is more relevant and meaningful compared to SAS as a measure of smartphone addiction [ 15 ] because unlike the SAS, this question can capture endogenous interruptions from their smartphone behaviour and participants were to simply report their behaviour within the last hour. The SAS is better suited to describe problematic smartphone use as the statements described behaviours over a longer duration. Further, SAS statements included some judgmental terms such as fretful, irritated, and this might have influenced participants’ ability in recalling such behaviour. We did not find any support for high smartphone addiction to low memory recall accuracy. Our participants in both HS and LS groups had similar high SAS scores, and they were similar to Kwon et al. [ 33 ] study, providing further evidence that smartphone addiction is relatively high in the student population compared to other categories such as employees, professionals, unemployed. Our participants’ high SAS scores and primary use of the smartphone was for social media signals potential problematic users [ 34 ]. Students’ usage of social networking (SNS) is common and the fear of missing out (FOMO) may fuel the SNS addiction [ 35 ]. Frequent checks on social media is an indication of lower levels of self-control and may indicate a need for belonging.

Our results for the presence of a smartphone and frequent phone conscious thought on memory recall is likely due to participants’ cognitive load ‘bandwidth effect’ that contributed to poor memory recall rather than a failure in their memory processes. Past studies have shown that participants with smartphones could generally perform simple cognitive tasks as well as those without, suggesting that memory failure in participants themselves to be an unlikely reason [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]. Due to our study design, we are unable to tease apart whether the presence of the smartphone had interfered with encoding, consolidation, or recall stage in our participants. This is certainly something of consideration for future studies to determine which aspects of memory processes are more susceptible to smartphone presence.

There are several limitations in our study. First, we did not ask the phone conscious thought at specific time points during the study. Having done so might have determined whether such thoughts impaired encoding, consolidating, or retrieval. Second, we did not include the simple version of this task as a comparison to rule out possible confounds within the sample. We did maintain similar external stimuli in their environment during testing, e.g. all participants were in one specific condition, lab temperature, lab noise, and thereby ruling out possible external factors that may have interfered with their memory processes. Third, the OS task itself. This task is complex and unfamiliar, which may have caused some disadvantages to some participants. However, the advantage of an unfamiliar task requires more cognitive effort to learn and progress and therefore demonstrates the limited cognitive load capacity in our brain, and whether such limitation is easily affected by the presence of a smartphone. Future studies could consider allowing participants to use their smartphone in both conditions and including eye-tracking measures to determine their smartphone attachment behaviour.

Implications

Future studies should look into the online learning environment. Students are often users of multiple electronic devices and are expected to use their devices frequently to learn various learning materials. Because students frequently use their smartphones for social media and communication during lessons [ 34 , 36 ], the online learning environment becomes far more challenging compared to a face-to-face environment. It is highly unlikely that we can ban smartphones despite evidence showing that students performed poorer academically with their smartphones presented next to them. The challenge is then to engage students to remain focused on their lessons while minimising other content. Some online platforms (e.g. Kahoot and Mentimeter) create a fun interactive experience to which students complete tasks on their smartphones and allow the instructor to monitor their performance from a computer. Another example is to use Twitter as a classroom tool [ 37 ].

The ubiquitous nature of the smartphone in our lives also meant that our young graduates are constantly connected to their smartphones and very likely to be on SNS even at work. Our findings showed that the most frequently used feature was the SNS sites e.g. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Being frequently on SNS sites may be a challenge in the workforce because these young adults need to maintain barriers between professional and social lives. Young adults claim that SNS can be productive at work [ 38 ], but many advise to avoid crossing boundaries between professional and social lives [ 39 , 40 ]. Perhaps a more useful approach is to recognise a good balance when using SNS to meet both social and professional demands for the young workforce.

In conclusion, the presence of the smartphone and frequent thoughts of their smartphone significantly affected memory recall accuracy, demonstrating that they contributed to an increase in cognitive load ‘bandwidth effect’ interrupting participants’ memory processes. Our initial hypothesis that experiencing higher NA or lower PA would have reduced their memory recall was not supported, suggesting that other factors not examined in this study may have influenced our participants’ affective states. With the rapid rise in the e-learning environment and increasing smartphone ownership, smartphones will continue to be present in the classroom and work environment. It is important that we manage or integrate the smartphones into the classroom but will remain a contentious issue between instructors and students.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our participants for volunteering to participate in this study, and comments on earlier drafts by Louisa Lawrie and Su Woan Wo. We would also like to thank one anonymous reviewer for commenting on the drafts.

Funding Statement

MHY received funding from Sunway University (GRTIN-RRO-104-2020 and INT-RRO-2018-49).

Data Availability

  • PLoS One. 2020; 15(8): e0219233.

Decision Letter 0

27 Aug 2019

PONE-D-19-17118

Dear Dr. Yong, ,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Your study addresses an interesting question about the impact of mobile phones on memory.  One area that raised o concerns was your assessment of phone conscious thought.  First you need to provide a clear conceptual  definition of this construct and also your rationale for how to assess it.  In the discussion you seem to imply that phone conscious thought is measuring separation anxiety while there was no assessment of anxiety. Also what is the rationale for measuring affect before and after the memory assessment/?  This point needs to be clarified.    There are also concerns about the analysis of mood changes before and after the memory assessment.  These analyses need to be described more clearly.  Both reviewers raised concerns about your design in terms of your control group.  You need to acknowledge the limitations of your design in the discussion and discuss  how it limits your theoretical interpretation. Overall much more care must be given to the writing of the manuscript.  Reviewer 1 has pointed out numerous examples of how the writing could be improved or clarified.  You must address all points raised by both reviewers in your revised manuscript.  

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Reviewer #1: The present study examined the mnemonic consequences associated with the presence of a smartphone. Overall, the authors found that participants without their cellphones had higher accuracy scores than those who had their cell phones present. They also found a negative correlation between accuracy and "phone conscious thought."

Overall, I think this is an interesting area of research. However, the following issues need to be addressed before I can recommend publication. I will start with the larger issues before moving to the smaller issues:

Larger issues

-Probably the biggest issue I found was the interpretation of their results. For example, on pg. 17, the authors state that "Although we did not find a significant relationship between SAS to memory accuracy, our measurements to 'phone conscious thought' is more relevant and meaningful because it measured participants separation anxiety..." This simply cannot be true: First, the question representing" phone conscious thought" asks "During the memory test how often do you think of your smartphone?" What does this even mean, exactly? How did participants interpret this question? Either way, I think it is quite a stretch to consider this anxiety. And, second, the SAS included a "'Withdrawal' sub-factor [that] describ[ed] the feeling of anxiety when separated from one's mobile phone." (pg. 9), but the authors found no significant correlations for any of the subfactors. Thus, not sure how a vague question about thoughts better represents anxiety than the specify subfactor of the SAS.

-Additionally, the authors suggestion that the decrease in positive affect is the result of "prohibited usage/or separation from their phone" (pg. 18). But the authors have no data to support this. For all they know, the participants had a decrease in positive affect simply because they were participating in a study since both groups exhibited this.

-In terms of the procedure, I'm a little concerned that only the "HS group" were told "no phone use." Obviously, I get the logic of this given that the phone was present for them but not for the "LS group." However, this could be a significant confound. Indeed, this could have drawn the participants attention to the fact that they couldn't use it and, in turn, could have distracted them, not simply because it was present but because of the fact that they were told they couldn't use their phone.

-Additionally, did the authors run any preliminary analysed based on how many participants were in each group when they participated? Given the importance just the mere presence of a cell is for the present study, the present of others could have influenced their results as well.

Smaller Issues:

-How is the reader supposed to know what "phone conscious though" means in the abstract?

-Pg. 2, Lines 13-14: A citation is needed to support this.

-Pg. 2 and throughout: "e.g." and "i.e." should only be used in parentheses. Otherwise, it should be "for example" and "that is" respectively and should always have commas around them.

-Pg. 2, Line 19: "Undoubtedly, the constant connectivity is applauded and desired..." This is way too editorial.

-Pg. 3, Line 38: Describe what the "digit cancelation task" is

-Pg. 3, Lines 41-42: "a mobile phone or a phone-sized notebook placed on participant's table before complete the tasks." Is not a complete sentence.

-Pg. 3, Line 42: "...showed no significant on..." Awkward. Reword

-Pg. 3, Line 43: Insert "the" between "during" and "simple"

-Pg. 3, Line 52: "in" should be "on" (there are a lot of typos throughout. I won't highlight them all, but a careful proofreading is necessary

-Pg. 3, Lines 54 & 57: Why do the authors provide the citation number to Ward et al., at the second instance and not the first?

-Pg. 4, Lines 73-78: I think all those sentences could be integrated and stated much more succinctly

-Pg. 5, Line 89 and throughout: The authors use the term "memory" throughout. However, there are many different types of memory. They should specify what they mean exactly by "memory" at each instance.

-Pg. 5, Prior to "present study": I think the authors could do a better job of more explicitly stating what gap in the literature the their study will fill.

-Results: Generally speaking, all t-tests should include cohen's d

-Pg. 7, Line 138: "begun" should be "began."

-Pg. 8, Line 153 & 161: Technically, the 5 should be spelled out. However, at the very least, keep it consistent. That is, the authors us 5 and spell out six.

-Smartphone addiction Scale: Many of the sentences in this section have errors and need to be fixed. Additionally, the authors use "secondly" on line 167, but there's no "first" and there's no "third," etc... Also, examples of each of the sub-factors should be included.

-Pg. 10: Some of this should be in the materials, not the procedure.

-Pg. 11, Gender: Why not include this analysis as a preliminary analysis. If gender, alternatively, is an important issue, then is should be set up as such in the lit review and the authors should examine the interaction with an F-test.

-Pg. 12, Lines 215-220: This should be a preliminary analysis. There's no reason to expect a difference between the groups assuming they were assigned randomly

-Pg. 13 (and elsewhere): The authors sometimes repeat the question in the results. This isn't needed. It's redundant.

-Pg. 14: Why didn't the authors run an ANOVA to examine for an interaction between mood change and condition?

-Pg. 15: More information is needed in terms of the variables included in the model.

-Pg. 18: There are no studies suggested under "Further Studies." The closest is a meaningless sentence: "Future studies should look into the online learning environment."

-Pgs. 18-19: "These behaviors are likely to remain the same when students graduate and move into the workforce." Can the authors provide a citation to back this up or what are the authors basing this on?

-Pg. 19, Lines 327-330: I don't understand this sentence or example...

-Pg. 19, Lines 342-343: "...the extent of the device purpose..." is awkward sounding.

Overall, many typos and awkward phrases. A careful proofreading is necessary.

Reviewer #2: 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

• How was sample size determined? Seems arbitrary, with no power analysis.

• The addition of “phone-conscious thought” is a construct that does not seem to be validated in the peer reviewed literature. It’s ok to include this, but the methods behind the development of these questions should be clearly stated, and the authors must define this construct. There are some problems with how it is defined, because the question used relies specifically on phone-related thoughts during the task, while the phone is either in their presence (HS) or absent (LS). So, this question appears to serve as more of a manipulation check rather than a true measurement of phone-conscious thought. There are many issues with the construct of “phone-conscious thought” in the current manuscript.

• Why is affect measured both before and after the memory test? Explain the rationale. Is the memory test expected to influence mood in any way?

• The inclusion of the phone-conscious thought question in the beginning of the study may have primed participants to think about their phones more overall, and this may have inflated the differences between the LS and HS groups.

• There should have been a 3rd control group where participants were given no instruction about what to do with their phone. This would help assess whether the LS group experienced lower recall or if the HS group experienced higher recall, relative to baseline.

*2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

• Results for the affect/mood changes are very unclear and should be edited to be more precise. Needs to be much more descriptive.

*3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

*4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

The writing is unclear at times with strange vocabulary choices (e.g. “Undoubtedly, the constant connectivity is applauded and desired but this has also spiralled into an obsession with the device for many individuals” lines 19-20). What do the authors mean by “applauded and desired”? Further, writing around the explanations of the relevant literature is imprecise and should be cleaned up so that no previous findings can be mischaracterized. Requires rigorous editing to be publishable, in my opinion.

Lines 57-58: In which direction? And in which tasks? All of them? Needs much greater precision.

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

18 Oct 2019

18 October 2019

Dear Academic Editor,

We would like to express our thanks and gratitude for the helpful comments raised in our paper. Below is a point-by-point response to each comment/question. Please note that the line numbers and pages is taken from the clean version of the revised manuscript. The citations and references are also taken from the clean manuscript, and as such the numbering of the references will be off in this letter.

Best regards,

C Tanil & MH Yong

** we thank you for your insightful comments. We have addressed each point in subsequent pages.

*** We thank the reviewer for this comment.

We should explain our reasoning for asking ‘phone conscious thought’ question. In Ward et al.’s study, they included three questions post-task, and we used two out of three questions. The two questions were (1) phone conscious thought “how often were you thinking about your cellphone” and (2) “…to what extent they believed their phones affected their performance and attention spans” (p. 145). The third question was about phone location, and we did not ask this question because we only had two locations and is a pointless question in our study. Ward et al. found that as smartphone salience increases (measured by the 3 questions), available cognitive capacity decreases – which is an indication that this particular question is meaningful to tap endogenous interruptions due to smartphone-related usage throughout the task. Even though the participants in both LS and HS conditions were not allowed to use their phone, their high phone use (average use per day in our sample was 8.16 hours, and 47% participants or 56 out of 119, are considered as addicted when compared to Kwon’s sample) might have evoked such thoughts, as suggested by Wilmer and Chien (2017) in their review. Some participants consider their smartphone as a ‘limb’ and losing this ‘limb’ is more common and has powerful effects than previously thought.

In Kwon et al.’s paper, the authors described the withdrawal sub-factor as “…involves being impatient, fretful, and intolerable without a smartphone, constantly having one’s smartphone in one’s mind even while not using it, never giving up using one’s smartphone, and becoming irritated when bothered while using one’s smartphone…” (p. 7). The 6 specific questions are as follows:

1. Won’t be able to stand not having a smartphone

2. Feeling impatient and fretful when I am not holding my smartphone

3. Having my smartphone in my mind even when I’m not using it

4. I will never give up using my smartphone even when my daily life is already greatly affected by it.

5. Getting irritated when bothered while using my smartphone

6. Bringing my smartphone to the toilet even when I am in a hurry to get there

One of the bigger challenges in using self-reported survey such as SAS is that these questions brings further attention to their behaviour which may then indirectly affects their response behaviour “social desirability” and/or inability to recall the frequency of such behaviour. Having the phone conscious thought is more spot-on and without the risk of both social desirability (negative terms such as impatient, fretful, irritation) and asking individuals to reflect on their past behaviour.

As to what our participants thought of seeing this question, we think that this is a simple straightforward question. We have since added more information about phone conscious thought in Abstract (page 2, line 6), Introduction (page 6, line 91-97), and Discussion (page 19, line 347-353).

*** We thank the reviewer for this comment. Indeed, both LS and HS groups experienced a decrease in PA. We realised that the sentences were misleading, and we apologise for the confusion. We have since reworded the sentences, see below and also on page 20, Line 364-369.

“While both groups showed a decrease in PA after completing the tasks, it is possible that the reduced PA is likely to have stemmed from the prohibited usage “HS” and/or separation from their phone “LS”. This is consistent with Cheever et al. (15), whose participants reported increased anxiety over time when separated from their phones and with Clayton, Leshner and Almond (18) findings, where participants were unable to use their phone.”

*** Thank you for this comment. The participants were informed to put their phones on silent, and either leave them at their side (HS) or hand them over to the researcher (LS). No phone use instruction was provided to both groups to prevent one group from accessing their phone over another. We have included this confound in the Discussion and suggested improvements. Please see revised section on page 20, line 369-373.

“Future studies could consider allowing participants to use their phone in both conditions and including eye tracking measures to determine their phone attachment behaviour.”

*** We thank the reviewer for this comment. We did not analyse for the presence of others as each session was mainly comprised of 3 participants only. We only had 2 sessions of 6 pax per session throughout.

*** Thank you for highlighting this. Please see revised section on page 2, line 6.

*** Thank you. We have added a new citation “GeekWire”. Please see the addition on page 3, line 14.

*** Thank you. We have made the changes throughout.

*** Thank you. We have revised the sentence (see below) and on page 3, line 18-19.

“Smartphones today have many functions that allows one to be constantly connected to others but this …”

*** Thank you for highlighting this omission. We have added the following sentence on page 4, line 40-44.

“The digit cancellation task involves crossing out one digit from a series of numbers with reference to a target number. Performance is measured by referring to the number of lines completed and a cancellation score based on the total number of targets possible for the lines completed minus the number of errors made (failure to cancel a target or mistakenly cancelled an inappropriate number).”

*** Thank you. We have revised the sentence to “…two groups; a mobile phone or a phone-sized notebook, which were placed on participant’s table before...” Please see page 4, line 46.

*** Thank you. We have revised the sentence to “…significance difference on performance between the phone and notebook condition for the simple digit ….” Please see page 4, line 47.

*** Thank you. Please refer to the above comment as the sentence has been revised.

*** Thank you. We have engaged a native English speaker to proof read our revised manuscript.

*** Thank you for highlighting this. We have since revised this.

*** Thank you. We have made the changes. Please see page 5, line 77-83.

*** Thank you. We have since included specific types of memory when describing past studies in earlier and subsequent pages.

*** Thank you. We have included a research gap in our aim under Present Study. Please see section below, and also found on page 7, line 112-121.

“Prior studies have demonstrated the detrimental effects of one’s smartphone on cognitive function (e.g. working memory (13), visual spatial search (14), attention (12)), and decreased cognitive ability with increasing attachment to one’s phone (15,17,20). In addition to the presence of a mobile phone , it is also possible that one’s current affective state influences cognitive performance (21–23). But we are uncertain whether one’s current positive or negative affective / mood states plays a bigger role on cognitive function such as memory recall accuracy, suggesting a more complex relationship between current mood states and memory recall accuracy. To our knowledge, no study has examined the relationship between mood states and memory recall accuracy, with smartphone addiction and phone conscious thought as potential mediators. We hypothesised … “

*** Thank you. We have added Cohen’s d for all t-tests.

*** Thank you. We have made the change.

*** Thank you. We have made the changes to include sample questions for each sub-factor. Please see page 10-11, line 190-216.

*** We have since relooked at our procedure and move out some items (e.g. phone conscious thought, and perception on learning) into Materials.

*** Thank you for this comment. Gender is not of interest in this study. However, we found that in our sample, females spent more time on their phone compared to males and wanted to determine if there is a gender effect on memory accuracy. We have included a preliminary analysis to include gender analysis under Results section. Please see page 14, line 255-258.

*** Indeed, we agree with this comment that there should not be any difference. However, this analysis is more of a precautionary measure. Please see page 14, line 258-261.

*** We have now changed our sentences to better reflect our findings.

*** Thank you for this suggestion. We have not only added this, but also explained what is PA and NA difference. Please see page 17, line 298-303.

“We first computed the mean difference (After minus Before) for both positive ‘PA difference’ and negative affect ‘NA difference’. A repeated-measures 2 (Mood change: PA difference, NA difference) x 2 (Conditions: LS, HS) ANOVA was conducted to determine whether there is an interaction between mood change and condition. There was no interaction effect of mood change and condition, F (1, 117) = .38, p = .54, np2 = .003. There was a significant effect of Mood change, F (1, 117) = 13.01, p < .001, np2 = .10 (see Fig 2).”

*** Thank you. We have added more information about PA and NA difference score in the earlier results. Please see the above explanation.

*** Thank you. What we meant is actually Implications, rather than Future Studies. We have now reworded the sub-heading.

*** We have revised this section. Please refer to page 21, line 387-395.

“The ubiquitous nature of the smartphone in our lives also meant that our young graduates are constantly connected to their phones and very likely to be on SNS even at work. Our findings showed that the most frequently used feature was the SNS sites e.g. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Being frequently on SNS sites may be a challenge in the workforce because these young adults need to maintain barriers between professional and social lives. Young adults claim that SNS can be productive at work (33), but many advise to avoid crossing boundaries between professional and social lives (34,35). Perhaps a more useful approach is to recognise a good balance when using SNS to meet both social and professional demands for the young workforce.”

*** We have reworded this section. Please see above.

*** We have revised it to “… integrate the phones into the classroom but will remain as a contentious issue between… “ See page 21, line 405.

*** Thank you for this comment. We reported observed power of .66 in our findings, and effect size of ᶇ2 = .44. Please see the added content below and on page 8, line 134-136.

“Using G*Power v. 3.1.9.2 , we need 76 participants with an effect size of d = .65, α = .05 and power (1-β) = .8 based on Thornton et al.’s study, and 128 participants based on numbers from Ward’s study. “

*** we thank the reviewer for this insightful comment. We certainly did not intend this question to be a manipulation check about their phones. We acknowledged that we omitted a fair amount of phone conscious thought in our earlier submission. We have since added more information about phone conscious thought in Abstract (page 2, line 6), Introduction (page 6, line 91-97), and Discussion (page 19, line 347-353).

*** we thank the reviewer for this comment. We realised that this is a major oversight on our part. The main reason for including affect measurement before and after was derived on the possibility that one’s mood may affect your cognitive function, and not simply due to phone presence. We have since made this clearer under Present Study (refer to page 7, line115-121 and in Results (refer to page 16-17, line 295-309).

*** we thank the reviewer for this comment. The phone conscious thought was asked at the end of the memory task. This was included in the Procedure section, page 12, line 243.

*** We thank the reviewer for this comment. One of the objectives in this study to examine the effect of a phone presence when participants are completing a simple learning and memory task. For this objective, we had two conditions; phone present (HS) and phone absent (LS). By having a third control with no instructions on what to do with the phone is addressing a different objective and that’s not part of our study objectives. We acknowledged that instruction on phone use may possibly be a confound and as such, we have addressed this limitation in our Discussion (see page 20, line 371-373).

*** We noted this. We have since revised this section. Please see page 16-17, line 295-309

*** We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have engaged a native English speaker to proofread our manuscript in accordance with academic writing practices.

*** we thank the reviewer for this comment. We have revised this sentence to better inform the reader on Ward et al.’s findings.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

PONE-D-19-17118R1

Dear DR. Yong,

I am very sorry for the delay in getting a decision for you.  It was difficult to get reviewers for your paper.  However I now have the response of two reviewers.  The first reviewer thought that your changes made the paper much better.  However there is still a fundamental question about what your paper is addressing.  The second reviewer raised this point as well and made an excellent suggestion that you need to discuss what mechanisms may explain your results and describe how they might be investigated.  You also need to work more on the overall writing style and make sure that the grammar is correct.  If you feel that you can address these issues please submit a revised version of the paper.Please note Reviewer One's points about the role of emotion and discuss how you might investigate its role in a future design as well as why that would be important.  Address all comments raised by the reviewers in your revision or justify why you are not addressing them.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by April 30 2020. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #3: Partly

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: Overall, I congratulate the authors on the revisions they've made already. The paper is much better for it.

However, I still have some concerns.

Most notably, as far as I can tell, the contribution this manuscript makes to the literature is in the inclusion of emotion. Indeed, the authors make this point quite clear in their "Present Study" section. Indeed, they state "But it is uncertain whether one's current positive or negative affective/mood states plays a bigger role on cognitive function..." but this doesn't seem to cohere very well with the rest of the paper. Barely anything is mentioned about emotion in the intro/lit. review (till the very end). In the analyses, the stats including emotion seem almost like an afterthought. Additionally, emotion is barely mentioned in the discussion. I realize that the authors found no statistical difference across groups, and therefore don't focus on them, but that raises another possible issue: interpreting a null result. If the primary motivation for this study was emotion, it seems to me that one would devise a different design whereby you also manipulate emotion and then examine the different conditions in terms of mobile phone salience.

Thus, at the heart of it, the present paper replicates prior research and then finds a null effect for their primary research question, making interpretations difficult.

For these reasons, I, unfortunately, am recommending rejection.

For the authors reference moving forward, the paper was still a bit hard to parse in places due to language issues throughout. I know the authors state that a native English speaker proofread it, but more diligent proofreading is needed in the future.

Reviewer #3: The experiment presented in this paper is aimed at primarily investigating whether the salience of a phone (high vs. low) impacts memory accuracy. It is a fairly straightforward experimental design and set of results. My main concern is that the paper lacks a clear mechanism to explain the results. Is the main result (i.e., HS leads to lower memory accuracy than LS) due to the fact that high salience participants are distracted during encoding? Is it due to retrieval deficits? Do they not consolidate the information properly? Is it evidence of a bandwidth effect, by which phone-related thought intrusion interferes with memory processes?

My sense is that not only that the experimental design did not attempt to answer the question mechanistically, but there is no attempt to theoretically scaffold the results in a potential mechanism. I would advise the authors to at least speculate as to what could explains the set of results they obtained and to hint at possible investigation of the mechanism involved.

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article ( what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Reviewer #3: No

Author response to Decision Letter 1

26 Apr 2020

*** We thank you for this. We do agree that we have omitted a fairly huge amount on the affective state and have since revised the Introduction to explain the interactions between emotion and cognition. Please see Page 4-5, Line 60-73 in Introduction. We have also reorganised the Aim/Hypotheses section – please see Page 5-6, Line 75-92.

*** We do apologise for this and have since secured a second proof reader. We hope that the manuscript is far more legible now. We have also reorganised parts of the manuscript to make it more coherent.

*** Thank you for this feedback. We will first address the question on whether the memory recall accuracy was due to encoding, consolidation or retrieval failure. From previous studies, simple versions of a cognitive task was not an issue between low salience (LS) and high salience (HS) participants (1–3) for they had similar performance levels. This suggests it is unlikely that participants had problems at either encoding, consolidation or retrieval for the simple tasks.

However in our study, we used OS Span task which is considered a complex task compared to simple memory span (4). Although we did not include simple memory span as a contrast to OS Span, previous studies suggest that this is not necessary because of similar performance levels across conditions. One of our aims was to replicate a previous study in investigating whether the presence of a smartphone was sufficient to affect memory recall accuracy (5). We found that our participants had significant difference in memory recall accuracy between HS and LS conditions, p = .02. While our results concurred with previous study findings, we are unable to tease apart whether the presence of the smartphone had interfered with encoding, consolidation, or recall phase in our participants. However there is a possibility that the separation from their smartphones may have caused feelings of anxiety, and anxiety may interrupt memory consolidation as suggested by some (6,7). This is certainly something of consideration for future studies.

Second, to the bandwidth effect interfering memory processes, we suspect that this might be the case, rather than an issue of failure in a specific memory process. This is because participants with smartphones or texters could generally perform simple cognitive tasks as well as those without, and the presence of the smartphone next to the participant is responsible for the increase in cognitive load (1,3,5).

Other than the smartphone presence to increase cognitive load, we intended to manipulate participants’ affective state by prohibiting smartphone usage (HS) or taking it away (LS). Previous research has shown that experiencing positive affect (PA) or negative affect (NA) would influence cognitive performance (6–8). We predicted that the short-term separation from smartphone would evoke some anxiety, measured either having lower positive affect (PA) or higher negative affect (NA) post-test. We also predicted that separation from the phone is directly correlated to lower memory recall (LS condition) (part of hypothesis 2). An increase in NA or decrease in PA (as an indicator of separation anxiety to their smartphones) often have a negative effect on cognition (6,7). Further, one study shown an increased level of anxiety even in 10 minutes (9) and OS Span generally takes 20 minutes. Our results supported this hypothesis for LS participants who experienced a stronger negative affect had poorer memory recall accuracy (rs = -.394, p = .002, n = 58). This suggests that phone separation anxiety does increases cognitive load. We did not find any significant relationship between NA and memory recall accuracy for the HS participants and also for the PA difference in both groups (see Results, page 14-15, line 259-265).

We also examined another variable – phone conscious thought – described in past studies (3,5). Here, we found that phone conscious thought is negatively correlated to memory recall in both HS and LS conditions (see Results page 15, line 273), and uniquely contributed 19.9% in our regression model.

Taken together, the results showed that phone conscious thought is a significant contributor to the bandwidth effect interrupting their memory processes, and not the change in affective states as we had originally predicted. We do not think that participants’ memory failed at critical points e.g. encoding, retrieval, consolidation. Our participants memory processes are not likely to be impaired as they are neurotypical young adults, unlike well-documented cases in ageing or traumatic brain injury populations. In conclusion, the presence of the smartphone and frequent thoughts of their smartphone were contributors that interrupted their memory processes.

We do acknowledge several limitations in our study. First, we did not ask the phone conscious thought at specific time points in this study. Having done so might determine whether such thoughts hindered encoding, consolidating, or retrieval. Second, we did not include the simple version of this task as a comparison to rule out possible confounds within the sample. We did maintain similar external stimuli in their environment during testing, e.g. all participants were in one specific condition, lab temperature, lab noise, and thereby ruling out possible external factors that may have interfered with their memory processes. Third, the OS task itself. This task is complex and unfamiliar, thus may have caused some disadvantages to some. However, the advantage of this task being likely to be more unfamiliar – requiring more cognitive effort to learn and progress – demonstrates the limited cognitive capacity in our brain, and whether such limitation is easily affected by a smartphone presence.

1. Ito M, Kawahara J-I. Effect of the presence of a mobile phone during a spatial visual search. Jpn Psychol Res. 2017 Apr 1;59(2):188–98.

2. Bowman LL, Levine LE, Waite BM, Gendron M. Can students really multitask? An experimental study of instant messaging while reading. Comput Educ. 2010 May 1;54(4):927–31.

3. Thornton B, Faires A, Robbins M, Rollins E. The mere presence of a cell phone may be distracting: Implications for attention and task performance. Soc Psychol. 2014;45(6):479–88.

4. Francis G, Neath I, VanHorn D. CogLab On A CD, Version 2.0. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth; 2008.

5. Ward AF, Duke K, Gneezy A, Bos MW. Brain drain: The mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. J Assoc Consum Res. 2017 Apr 1;2(2):140–54.

6. Levine LJ, Lench HC, Karnaze MM, Carlson SJ. Bias in predicted and remembered emotion. Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2018 Feb 1;19:73–7.

7. Okon-Singer H. The role of attention bias to threat in anxiety: mechanisms, modulators and open questions. Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2018 Feb 1;19:26–30.

8. Gray JR. Integration of Emotion and Cognitive Control. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2004 Apr 1;13(2):46–8.

9. Cheever NA, Rosen LD, Carrier LM, Chavez A. Out of sight is not out of mind: The impact of restricting wireless mobile device use on anxiety levels among low, moderate and high users. Comput Hum Behav. 2014 Aug 1;37:290–7.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers PONE-D-19-17118R1 Yong.docx

Decision Letter 2

25 Jun 2020

PONE-D-19-17118R2

Dear Dr. Yong,

I and another reviewer have carefully read your paper and the revisions that you made.  You have addressed many of the points but a few more changes need to be implemented before it can be accepted.  The main issues concern the introduction.  One phrase in Line 62 has no verb and therefore can not be a sentence.  You need to correct the grammatical structure.  Secondly it would be good if the introductory sentence to the paragraph beginning on line 61 indicated the relationship between cognition and affect is important for understanding the impact of mobile phone use on memory.  As it is written the paragraph does link well to the previous paragraphs.  Further line 82 makes reference to smart phone addiction very briefly but the discussion focuses a great deal on smart phone addiction.  You need to define smart phone addiction  and indicate why it is important to examine this construct in your study. Further you need to define the subscales in of the SAS in the methods and also justify under phone consious thought why you are including this question.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 09 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at gro.solp@enosolp . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: The authors addressed my comments satisfactorily, so I recommend acceptance for the manuscript. I doubt, though, that anxiety plays a huge role in these dynamics, given that it is hard to imagine that one would be able to create the levels of anxiety necessary for the disruption of cognitive function by simply temporarily removing their phones.

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Author response to Decision Letter 2

14 Jul 2020

1. The main issues concern the introduction. One phrase in Line 62 has no verb and therefore can not be a sentence. You need to correct the grammatical structure.

*** We thank the editor for pointing this out. We have since removed the sentence.

2. Secondly it would be good if the introductory sentence to the paragraph beginning on line 61 indicated the relationship between cognition and affect is important for understanding the impact of mobile phone use on memory. As it is written the paragraph does link well to the previous paragraphs.

*** We thank the editor for this comment. We have revised the paragraph, please see Line 60-61, page 4.

“Further, we need to consider the relationship between cognition and emotion to understand how frequent mobile phone use affects memory e.g. memory consolidation. Some empirical findings … “

3. Further line 82 makes reference to smart phone addiction very briefly but the discussion focuses a great deal on smart phone addiction. You need to define smart phone addiction and indicate why it is important to examine this construct in your study.

*** We thank the reviewer for omission on our part. Please find the newly added sentences below on Line 83-88, page 5-6.

“One in every four young adults is reported to have problematic smartphone use and this is accompanied by poor mental health e.g. higher anxiety, stress, depression (Sohn et al., 2019). One report showed that young adults reached for their phones 86 times in a day on average compared to 47 times in other age groups (Deloitte Development LLC, 2017). Young adults also reported that they “definitely” or “probably” used their phone too much, suggesting that they recognised their problematic smartphone use. “

4. Further you need to define the subscales in of the SAS in the methods and also justify under phone consious thought why you are including this question.

*** We thank the reviewer for this comment. Please see the inclusion for SAS subscales on Line 159-166, page 9.

“SAS contained six sub-factors; daily-life disturbance that measures the extent to which mobile phone use impairs one’s activities during everyday tasks (5 statements), positive anticipation to describe the excitement of using phone and de-stressing with the use of mobile phone (8 statements), withdrawal refers to the feeling of anxiety when separated from one’s mobile phone (6 statements), cyberspace-oriented relationship refers to one’s opinion on online friendship (7 statements), overuse measures the excessive use of mobile phone to the extent that they have become inseparable from their device (4 statements), and tolerance points to the cognitive effort to control the usage of one’s smartphone (3 statements).”

We have also added the justification to the phone conscious thought. Please see this inclusion on Line 173-175, page 9.

“The aim of this question was two-fold; first was to capture endogenous interruption experienced by the separation, and second to complement the smartphone addiction to reflect current immediate experience.”

5. How frequent do we reach for our phones?

*** Surprisingly, high, but unsurprisingly higher for young adults. Deloitte 2017 survey reported that the average American reaches for their phones 47 times while young adults (aged between 18 to 24) reach for 86 times. The same survey also reported that 89% looked at their phone within an hour of waking up and that 81% also looked at their phone within an hour before going to bed. Further, 90% of young adults reported using their phones in their daily activities ranging from shopping, leisure time, talking to friends, crossing the road, and this trend has been consistent for the past three years. The young adults also reported that they “definitely” or “probably” use their phone too much, suggesting some form of recognising their addiction (Deloitte Development LLC, 2017). Another poll reported that one in every 10 Americans check their phones every four minutes, and that most people struggle to go beyond 10 minutes without checking their phone (SWNS, 2017).

We have added couple of sentences to further highlight on mobile phone addiction under Research Aim (see Line 85-88, page 5-6).

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers PONE-D-19-17118R2 Yong.docx

Decision Letter 3

PONE-D-19-17118R3

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Mobile phones in the classroom – what does the research say?

Mobile phones in the classroom – what does the research say?

In a recent Teacher article, two schools discussed their differing policies on mobile phone use during school hours. Here, we look at a range of studies that have explored the positives and negatives of allowing mobile phones to be used in class.

As Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs become more widespread, questions are being raised about the benefits of allowing students to actively use mobile phones as learning devices in school. Over the past decade, several studies have taken a closer look at student and educator perspectives on the issue.

One comparative study was undertaken across two schools in England in 2012, and details how students from each school use their devices during class time. One school allows the use of mobile devices and one doesn't.

The study titled “I don't think I would be where I am right now.” Pupil perspectives on using mobile devices for learning conducted student surveys. The results show that 43 per cent of students attending the school where devices are banned are still using them to help with learning despite the ban. Meanwhile, 74 per cent of students at the school which allow them, use the devices to aid learning.

Most respondents in this study say they use their device for Google and calendars during the school day. As for learning at home, most students also rely on their device.

‘A few days ago, my friend didn't understand one of the questions on the Science homework, so he Facetimed me, and I showed him my answer and I explained how I got that answer to him ...' one student says.

The research shows that students rely mostly on their devices to keep them organised. The calendar, alarms and camera (usually to take photos of a teacher's notes) are features constantly used by students, the report notes. ‘One pupil said his device was essential for “remembering things” and without he would “forget to take homework in a lot”.'

Overall, this study proposes that mobile devices are a suitable learning tool for the classroom.

‘There is clear evidence that many pupils feel that they are deriving educational benefit from the use of their devices,' the report says. ‘They are using many of the features of their devices and often finding creative ways to employ these features in their schoolwork, both at home and at school.'

Students with concerns

A study conducted in the US reveals concerns held by some students about the risks involved with allowing mobile phones to be used freely at school. The research, Hold the phone! High School Students' Perceptions of Mobile Phone Integration in the Classroom , which was published in 2016, found that although seven out of 10 of students interviewed think mobile phones support learning, serious concerns still exist among 30 per cent of respondents, who feel the negative effects of smartphones justifies a school-wide ban.

Across the 628 students surveyed, worries range from general distraction (for example, phones ringing during class) to fears about other students using smartphones to cheat, sext and cyberbully.

Despite this, the study also found that 90.7 per cent of the students surveyed were using their mobile phones for school-related work.

The authors of this study say that school policy makers should consider these findings and ‘develop clear policies on appropriate classroom mobile phone use as well as consequences for their misuse … expecting schools to completely eliminate the problems associated with mobile phone integration, however, is unrealistic; therefore, school stakeholders must carefully consider the benefits and barriers identified by students in determining policy.'

Mobile phone use – a teacher's perspective

As for what teachers think about including the use of mobile phones in their lessons, one US study looked at nine teachers' attempts to incorporate various technology devices in their lessons.

The study , Teaching and learning with mobile computing devices from 2015 details the experiences of one Mathematics teacher, Steven, who uses an iPhone in class.

‘Steve used his own iPhone to document students' work and attendance,' the study says. ‘He uploaded scanned tests, quizzes, assignments, and photographs into a web-based software application called Evernote. Each of his students [primarily 9th and 10th graders] had a file in this program … this was helpful to Steven when conducting formal and informal parent-teacher conferences and also when discussing with other teachers and administration.

‘Steven enjoyed the flexibility of mobile devices by holding class in locations other than his classroom, such as the auditorium and outside … [and] he could use his iPhone to “pull up every document [he's] ever scanned in and get a much bigger, much more accurate picture” of a student's progress.'

Although participants in this study say using a mobile device in the classroom involved the need for exploration and a lot of personal research, the authors suggest that with the growing trend of BYOD, schools should consider integrating mobile devices into lesson plans.

References:

Grant, M.M, Tamim, S., Brown, D.B., Sweeney, J.P., Ferguson, F.K., & Jones, L.B (2015). Teaching and learning with mobile computing devices: Case study in K-12 classrooms. TechTrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning , 59(4), 32-45. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11528-015-0869-3

Thomas, K, & Muñoz, MA. (2016) 'Hold the Phone! High School Students' Perceptions of Mobile Phone Integration in the Classroom', American Secondary Education, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 19-37. https://www.ashland.edu/coe/about-college/american-secondary-education-journal

Walker, R. (2013) “I don't think I would be where I am right now". Pupil perspectives on using mobile devices for learning', Research in Learning Technology, vol. 21, pp. 1-12. DOI: 10.3402/rlt.v21i2.22116

Related articles

Controlling smartphone use in schools

Georgetown University.

Cell Phones as Instructional Technology in the Civics Classroom: Key Findings

research on cell phones in the classroom

The use of digital technology has become increasingly prevalent in American elementary and secondary school civics classrooms.  A 2019 Gallup study found that 65% of teachers use digital technology in the classroom daily, with history and social studies instructors among the most frequent users.  Many students own cell phones, and cell phone technology has advanced to the point of allowing students to use them for their studies.  Cell phones have the potential to enhance civics instruction in myriad ways, and can bridge the technology gap that exists between high-needs students and their counterparts at well-resourced schools.  However, cell phones can distract students, constrain their development of crucial research skills, and hamper face-to-face classroom interactions.  These conflicting factors have resulted in wide variations in cell phone policies across and within schools, with some institutions and teachers fully embracing their instructional capacities and others banning their use.

Dr. Diana Owen and Chelsea Sanchez of CERL presented a paper exploring the use of cell phones by civic educators at the elementary, middle, and high school levels at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting on September 11, 2020.  This study employs data from an original survey of elementary, middle, and high school teachers that was conducted by Dr. Diana Owen and graduate students in Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture, and Technology (CCT) program.  It was administered online to civics, social studies, and American government teachers recruited from the networks of the Center for Civic Education and the Bill of Rights Institute.  The study was in the field from November 15 to December 6, 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.  A total of 1,146 teachers who completed the survey were included in the analysis, consisting of 825 high school teachers, 271 middle school teachers, and 48 elementary school teachers. 

Teacher Support of Digital Tools in the Classroom

Our study reinforced trends identified by Gallup showing that 96% of teachers support the use of digital tools in the classroom.  Almost all the civics teachers (98%) responding to our survey used digital learning tools, defined as any learning aids used by educators and students that employ digital technology in the civics classroom.  Laptop computers (81%) were overwhelmingly the most common device used to support the use of digital tools for instruction.  Tablets (31%) were used in the smallest percentage of classrooms.  Desktop computers (52%) and cell phones were employed at nearly the same rate.  51% of teachers in our study reported that their students used cell phones for learning in their classrooms.  (See Figure 1.)  Of teachers who used cell phones for civics instruction, 5% did so in every class, 18% in most classes, and 77% in some classes. 

Devices Used in the Civics Classroom

research on cell phones in the classroom

Civics Teachers and Cell Phone Policies

In our study, teachers responded to an open-ended question that asked about their policy for in-class cell phone use.  One-third of teachers reported that their school had a no cell phone policy.  (See Figure 2.) At the other end of the spectrum, only 5% of schools had no limits on cell phone use or allowed students to self-monitor.  One-quarter of teachers indicated that students could use cell phones for approved tasks.  Another quarter of the respondents allowed cell phones to be used with the permission of the instructor.  12% of teachers specifically mentioned that their school supplied students with devices, such as Chromebooks, that they could use in the classroom which would curtail the use of cell phones.

Cell Phone Policies

research on cell phones in the classroom

Key Findings: Cell Phone Policy by School Characteristics

  • Approximately half of both middle and elementary school teachers outright banned cell phones in the classroom.
  • High school teachers had more varied policies: nearly a third (29%) banned cell phones, 26% permitted their use for approved tasks, and 26% allowed them with teacher permission.
  • Technical schools permitted cell phones more often than other types of schools.  Only 17% of teachers in technical schools banned cell phones in the classroom.
  • Teachers in Title I schools (38%) were somewhat more likely to ban cell phone use in the classroom than teachers in non-Title I schools (29%) 
  • One third of teachers at both one-to-one schools (34%) and non-one-to-one schools (33%) banned cell phones in the classroom 
  • The percentage of teachers who ban cell phones in the classroom decreases as school size increases.

Cell Phone Policy by School Characteristics

research on cell phones in the classroom

All relationships have a χ statistical significance of p≤.01 except public/private school which is non-significant.

Key Findings: Cell Phone Access in the Civics Classroom

  • Cell phone access is a prerequisite for their use in the classroom
  • 67% of high school, 35% of middle school, and 48% of elementary school teachers reported that all students had access to cell phones.
  • Universal access was higher in private schools (81%) than public schools (56%)
  • Students in Title I schools (51%) had less access to cell phones than students in non-Title I schools (67%)
  • Teachers in one-to one schools (63%) were more likely to report that all students had cell phones than those in schools where students were not all assigned a device (54%). 
  • Technical schools, religious schools, and magnet schools had greater cell phone access than other types of schools
  • 72% of teachers in large schools reported that their students all had access compared to 56% in small schools

Student Access to Cell Phones by School Characteristics

research on cell phones in the classroom

Key Findings: Teaching Civics Using Cell Phone s

  • High school teachers were more likely to use cell phones for instruction than middle or elementary school teachers
  • Cell phones in civics class were more prevalent in public schools (52%) than private schools (42%)
  • Teachers in religious and charter schools were the least likely to teach with cell phones
  • More than half of teachers in alternative, magnet, and technical schools used cell phones in the classroom
  • Title I school teachers (47%) were less likely to instruct with cell phones than non-Title I school teachers (55%)
  • Teachers in one-to-one schools (45%) were less likely to use cell phones than those in schools that were not one-to-one (58%)
  • Larger school size and class size were positively related to cell phone use

Classroom Cell Phone Use by School Characteristics

research on cell phones in the classroom

Key Findings: Cell Phone Use by Teacher Characteristics

  • There were no statistically meaningful differences in teachers’ age, gender, education, or years teaching civics related to their use of cell phones in the classroom
  • Teachers of adult education, ELL/ESL students, pre-service teachers, and teachers of Native American students were more likely to use cell phones
  • Teachers of AP classes (60%) and honors classes (54%) instructed with cell phones more than those who did not teach AP or honors (46%)

Classroom Cell Phone Use by Teacher Characteristics

research on cell phones in the classroom

Key Findings: How Cell Phones are Used in the Civics Classroom

  • 90% of students used cell phones to look up information
  • 70% of students conducted research for class using cell phones
  • Half of students used cell phones to communicate with teachers and classmates

How Students Use Cell Phones for Learning

(% of those who use cell phones for learning in the classroom)

research on cell phones in the classroom

Key Findings: Effectiveness in Achieving Civics Outcomes

  • Even teachers who use cell phones frequently for instruction were not convinced about their effectiveness in imparting civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions
  • Over half of teachers who used cell phones for learning in most classes perceived that the devices were effective in promoting civic knowledge (57%), dispositions (55%), and skills (54%)
  • 44% of teachers who used cell phones sometimes or never felt they were effective in conveying civic knowledge
  • 38% of teachers who used them sometimes or never believed they were effective for imparting civic dispositions
  • 46% of teachers who sometimes taught with cell phones and 36% of those who never used them felt cell phone use was effective for conveying civic skills

Teachers’ Perceptions on the Effectiveness of Cell Phone Use on Civic Outcomes

research on cell phones in the classroom

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Should Cellphones Be Permitted in Classrooms? Teachers Offer These Strategies

research on cell phones in the classroom

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Student cellphone usage has become a major issue of concern for schools, particularly since the beginning of the pandemic.

I discussed this topic last year here , and it continues to be an issue .

This two-part series will share the thoughts and experiences of several teachers in the classroom.

This year, our school faculty committed to enforce a rule that no cellphones could be used in the classroom, except with teacher permission (for example, if the class was playing an online game). Students were asked to keep phones in their backpacks and could use them between classes and during lunch.

Though it hasn’t solved all phone problems, it’s made all the difference in the world! I would suggest the problem—at least for me—is 10 percent to 20 percent of what it was last year. However, I also recognize that not all classes are the same, and that some may very well offer bigger challenges than mine.

I periodically remind students of the “deal” we have: “I work very hard to create engaging lessons, you get to work with your friends (Note: we do a lot of group work where students can choose their group mates), and I’m supportive of you in many ways. In return, I just ask that you try your best and don’t put me in the position of having to police phones.”

That seems to help!

‘A Middle Ground’

Amber Chandler is a national-board-certified ELA teacher in Hamburg, N.Y. She is the author of The Flexible ELA Classroom , The Flexible SEL Classroom , and Movie Magic :

As a middle school teacher, I find that I am more conflicted about cellphones than anything else I face in my day-to-day life as a teacher. On the one hand, they are the bane of my existence, constantly vying for attention. How can I ever compete with the serotonin hit that accompanies “likes”? The amount of information within my students’ reach is hard to contend with, making me especially crazy when they ignore their phones’ amazing capabilities, instead opting to scroll TikTok endlessly. However, on the other hand, I know that I’d be missing an opportunity to help my students prepare for their future if I simply make them lock them in their locker. It isn’t as if cellphones are going to go away.

My solution has been a middle ground, and for the most part, it has worked. I have a charging station at the front of my classroom for phones, Airpods, and Chromebooks. Students really appreciate that I understand the need for charging! Students are not allowed to have their phones out in class until the last three minutes. Then, I let them “go on their phones.” My sell to them is simple: I need 40 minutes of your time, with undivided attention. If you give me 40, I can give you the final three. Students are busy, have crazy schedules, and I text my own kiddos a few times a day. I know that parents feel better, given the incidences of school violence and the mental health crisis, if they can touch base with their children throughout the day. I inform parents of my policy, and they are supportive.

Of course with every plan, there are the rule breakers. Students and families know that there’s a simple 1-2-3 list of consequences. The consequences aren’t on a daily basis but over the course of each quarter. I explain that I don’t have the time or inclination to talk about phones all the time. So, the first time I see a phone, I give the student a reminder. The second time, they have to call their parents (from the hallway, with me standing right there) and tell them they were on their phone. The third time, the phone goes to the office where their parents will have to pick it up (that’s the school rule, not mine). After these three consequences, they are no longer allowed to have their phones in my room until the next quarter.

It isn’t a perfect plan, but it is helping me help them to learn a little more self-control and discipline regarding their phone usage. So far, it has been very effective, and I plan to continue using it.

itisntchandler

Phones Can Be ‘Barriers’ or ‘Tools’

Erinn Leone is a social science teacher and student advocate at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.:

Cellphones are here to stay. As a society, we have constructed a world in which cellphones are an intimate part of our daily lives. Anywhere you look in today’s society, you will find a cellphone. From baby strollers to behind the wheel of moving vehicles, phones are everywhere … including in our classrooms.

Cellphones are a barrier, a distraction that we as a society have invited into our lives. In classrooms, teachers compete with cellphones for the attention of our students. I like to think I’m a pretty engaging and dynamic educator, but if it’s between me and a cellphone, a cellphone will always be more entertaining. I try not to take it personally when phones disrupt.

Oftentimes, our initial reaction is to ban phones and punish their use in classrooms. Our intentions are pure. We want to eliminate something that could become a barrier to our students being successful in our classrooms. Phones can indeed be a barrier, but phones can also be a tool.

When students leave high school, there will be no phone bans. Students will continue to have unlimited access to their devices wherever they go. They will be expected to discern when it is appropriate to use their phones or silence them.

As a high school teacher, this is the reality that I want to prepare my students for. In the classroom, I aim to help students realize when their phone is becoming a distraction and when/how it can and should be used as a resource or tool.

When I see a cellphone out in my classroom, I ask the student, “Is this [their phone] an emergency, a tool, or a distraction right now.” This question gives the student an opportunity to self-reflect. Sometimes, it is an emergency. Often, parents are utilizing their own tools (cellphones) to communicate with their children during the school day. Occasionally it is a tool; a student may be looking up a definition or a translation.

More often, the student will recognize that they are being pulled away from their learning by a distraction (TikTok, IG, texts, games, etc.). In this case, we both acknowledge the phone as a distraction, and I present the student with three choices: 1. Put the phone in their pocket, 2. Put their phone in their backpack, or 3. Keep their phone on my desk for the remainder of the period to help them minimize the distraction. None of the options is punitive and they allow the student to choose a solution that would help them refocus and stay engaged in the learning.

Like with anything else, students will need continued support, redirection, and praise. If the distraction persists, I intervene by keeping the phone at my desk for the duration of the class period to help the student refocus.

After class, before returning the phone, I ask the student to briefly reflect on how their learning or engagement was different without the phone as a distraction. I acknowledge and praise their ability to tune out the distraction (even if it required teacher intervention). Finally, I remind them that my desk is always a safe space for phones if they don’t feel like they are ready to handle the temptation of having the phone in their pocket or backpack yet.

None of this is punitive. The goal is to help the student discern when and how they should use their devices, increase their mindfulness about when and why they are reaching for their devices, and practice making choices that support their development.

Finally, I provide opportunities for students to use their phones as tools in the classroom (looking up definitions, check-in surveys, creating videos, Kahoot, etc.). Phones are a part of our society, and unless we decide to eliminate phones from society as a whole, we will not be able to eliminate them from our classrooms. We can, however, teach students how to be more mindful about their cellphone use and encourage positive decisionmaking around cellphone use so that students are prepared to navigate life after school with their devices in hand (or in pocket).

ifitsbetween

Avoiding Escalations

Marie Moreno, Ed.D., is an educator and administrator with over 20 years of experience specializing in newcomer and second-language acquisition. She is passionate about refugee and immigrant education, focusing on social and emotional needs and newcomer programming:

As a school principal, I often had to deal with students who were disruptive in the classroom because of cellphones. Phones are one distraction that, if handled with dignity and respect, can offer long-term solutions that is a win-win for both student and teachers.

I recall handling student disruptions because it becomes a power struggle. To help you bring this into context, I provided this real scenario during my tenure as a principal:

Teacher: “Bobby! You know the rules. No phones. Give me that phone now. It’s no longer yours. It’s mine.”

Bobby: “Hell no! It’s my phone. I paid for it.”

Teacher: “The rule is NO PHONES! Give it to me now; otherwise, you will serve time in detention or worse.”

Bobby: “No! You’re not taking my phone, EVER!”

Teacher: “YES I am, I’m in charge. You don’t have a choice in this. Either you give me the phone now, or I’m calling the officer/principal right now.”

Bobby: “F-That!” [ He hands over the phone to the teacher]

Teacher: “You just earned yourself a day in detention for that language, and I will call your parents. Keep it up, and I will tell the principal to suspend you too!”

Bobby: “What the F***?! I just gave you my G** D*** phone like you told me to!”

Teacher: “OK, now I’m calling the principal to have you removed from my classroom.”

This escalation happens so often in classrooms. You can see this situation twofold. The teacher ultimately won the fight because the student was removed from the classroom, yet the student missed classroom instruction. On the other hand, the student may not have wanted to do the work in the first place, so the student ultimately “got what he wanted”—not to complete the assignment. Look at the same scenario with a different approach.

Teacher: “Hey, Bobby, you’re texting, and the rule is not phones. Everything OK?”

Bobby: “Yeah, I’m just talkin’ to my peeps.”

Teacher: “I’m glad you have friends, Bobby. That’s good. But the rule I have to enforce is no phones, and I know that’s really hard to stick to all day long at school, isn’t it?”

Bobby: “Dude, it’s totally impossible!”

Teacher: “I know. How about this . . . how about you give me your phone to hold on to for the rest of the day/class? I’ll keep it safe and return it to you when the bell rings at the end of the day/class period. That way, you don’t get in trouble and can finish your work in my class. You will get your phone back to continue connecting with your peeps when you finish (or end of the day).”

Bobby: “Seriously?”

Teacher: “Yes, I know. It’s hard. You have a pass code lock on it so no one can read your private information.”

Bobby: “OK [teacher], but you promise I get it back at the end of the period/day, right? I don’t have to pay the fine, correct?” He hands over the phone to the teacher.

Teacher: “Absolutely, I appreciate you trusting me and letting me support you.”

‘Real’ power is how the teacher influences the students to get the job done ultimately. I worked with teachers to instill expectations that will keep students in class while de-escalating situations regarding cellphones.

First, set clear expectations on your cellphone policy. Collect all cellphones at the door and let students know they will be returned at the end of the period. Teachers can also tell students to put cellphones away, or they will be collected during class.

Second, create positive relationships and listen to your students. If students say something like, “My mom is going to text me,” acknowledge and say, “OK, I will allow you to check after you complete some of your work.”

Finally, greet students at the door and either collect phones then or remind them of the cellphone expectations. If you are consistent and keep your word, they will rise to the expectation set by the teacher.

setclear

Thanks to Amber, Erinn, and Marie for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s post responded to this question:

How do you handle student cellphones in class?

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email . And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 12 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list here .

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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In Our View: Enforce cellphone restrictions in schools

Among the issues facing public education, discussions with teachers inevitably settle upon a preeminent problem — phones.

Smartphones have given students — and adults — access to the world that previously was unimaginable. They have delivered accumulated human knowledge to our fingertips, retrievable in a matter of seconds. But they also have put time-wasting distractions within reach, and those distractions all too often take precedence over the serious business of learning.

Cellphone use by students should be limited to before and after school and perhaps during lunch. And steps should be taken to keep phones in pockets or backpacks during class.

In Evergreen Public Schools, the first clause of a district policy governing cellphones states, “Telecommunication devices may be used in the classroom only under the direction of the classroom teacher and building administration.” The second clause states, “Students will not use telecommunication devices in a manner that poses a threat to academic integrity, disrupts the learning environment, or violates the privacy rights of others.”

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Other local districts have similar policies. But parsing the definitions of those policies and expecting teachers to police cellphone use is difficult. As Bloomberg Opinion reports: “A recent survey found that 97 percent of U.S. adolescents used their phones at school, with most of it spent on social media, YouTube and gaming platforms.”

The lure of TikTok and other social media, or the seemingly powerful need to check text messages, is a compelling distraction. It also is a harmful one. Various studies have detailed that excessive social media use is linked to rising rates of depression and emotional distress among teenagers.

All of which lends interest to proposals in Congress. A bill introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and bipartisan co-sponsors would require districts receiving funds through the federal E-Rate program to block access to social media platforms. The E-Rate program subsidizes broadband connections for certain districts.

But only one-third of public schools qualify for the E-Rate program, limiting the scope of such legislation.

Another bill in the Senate would allocate $5 million a year in federal money to help schools pay for phone-storage equipment. But that funding is unlikely to have much reach in a nation with more than 13,000 public school districts.

Instead, solutions should fall to individual districts.

According to the Associated Press, 90 percent of U.S. public schools in the early 2010s prohibited cellphone use. By the 2015-16 school year, that had dropped to 65 percent. And the COVID-19 pandemic further enhanced students’ reliance on their phones.

As an administrator in Gig Harbor’s Peninsula School District said last year: “We came out of the pandemic and realized something has changed about students and their relationships with their devices. I’m not an expert, but it looked a lot like addiction.”

People who are experts agree with that assessment. Notably, the Peninsula district has blocked social media on its network and restricted the use of mobile devices to nonclass hours.

The fact that the move generated media attention highlights the scope of the issue. Prohibiting phone use should be routine rather than unusual.

The primary drawback to such a policy is increasing the enforcement duty of educators. But with support from administrators and parents, schools can remind students that they are in school to learn and that phones can distract from that purpose.

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Cell Phones in the Classroom: Are we Dialing up Disaster?

  • Published: 06 February 2011
  • Volume 55 , pages 39–45, ( 2011 )

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Over the last decade there has been a rapid diffusion of cellular technology. Though cell phone use began as a business tool, it has now become part of popular culture. Because of the near ubiquitous presence of cell phone technology among teens in the United States, schools are beginning to explore the use of cell phones as a learning tool. This paper explores the implementation of a pilot program using cell phones in a pre-calculus classroom. Included is a description of the implementation of the pilot, an explanation of several activities that occurred during the pilot, and recommendations of how to work with students who do not own cell phones. The paper concludes with several considerations for the use of cell phones in a high school setting.

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George Engel and Tim Green. Cell Phones in the Classroom: Are we Dialing up Disaster?. TECHTRENDS TECH TRENDS 55 , 39–45 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-011-0482-z

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15 Reasons Why Cell Phones Should Be Allowed in School

Table of Contents

In recent times, the debate over permitting children to use mobile phones at school has received a lot of attention.  Since mobile phones lead to certain disciplinary issues in the institution, the majority of schools prohibit cell phones inside the campus. Moreover, such schools impose severe penalties and harsh punishments on students who carry cell phones to class. On the other hand, some school administrators only permit cell phone use after class. After the advent of technology, mobile phones play a vital role in all aspects of life including education. So, here we have analyzed and listed the major reasons why cell phones should be allowed in school.

In general, the positive impacts of cell phones in school are high. Starting from checking the school events to reading books, several students commonly use gadgets such as cell phones and laptops.

Continue reading this blog and get to know how cell phones serve academic purposes.

Key Reasons Why Cell Phones Should Be Allowed in School

why phones phone should be allowed in school

As said earlier, the majority of the schools follow the ‘No Phone Policy’ for various reasons. However, the below-listed benefits of allowing cell phones in class may intrigue such schools to think and reconsider their situation. Even for debate over allowing cell phones in schools, you can explain your arguments by quoting the reasons suggested below.

Also Read: Top 10 Subjects Where Students Seek Assignment Help

1. Emergency Communication

Cell phones can be useful for students to contact their parents or guardians in the event of an emergency, thus ensuring their safety. They offer a quick way to get assistance when needed. For example, if a student feels ill or is in a dangerous position, having a cell phone on hand allows them to seek urgent assistance. This improves their security in the school setting, reassuring both kids and parents.

2. Digital Learning Materials

Mobile apps and internet tools for cell phones provide interactive learning experiences that adapt to a variety of learning styles. Also, with those digital learning resources, students can easily grasp and retain information more efficiently. In addition to that, these online learning materials have the potential to make standard classroom studying more dynamic and engaging.

3. Research and Information

Cell phones provide students with a wealth of knowledge. In specific, with mobile phones, students can research several topics, use educational apps, and learn outside of the classroom. Furthermore, with the internet at their fingertips, students may readily delve into topics that fascinate them or investigate complex themes. This will widen their knowledge and develop curiosity and self-directed learning, which are critical traits for success in the information era.

4. Easy to Communicate

The ability of mobile phones to synchronize conversations makes them an excellent social tool. Especially, cell phones play a key role in improving collaboration among students, instructors, parents, and the larger school community. Furthermore, smartphones promote social interaction and help the school community stay connected.

5. Set Reminders for Homework

Students can use their phones to set homework reminders or alarms. Keeping alarms will help them stay well-organized and finish their assignments on time. Furthermore, keeping reminders will make students accountable for their duties. Especially, regular practice of setting reminders will help students improve their time management skills, which are useful not only for school but also for life.

6. Interactive Learning

This is another major reason why cell phones should be allowed in schools. In general, students will willingly study when instructional content is presented interactively through quizzes, polls, surveys, and videos. Smartphones will considerably facilitate this form of study techniques and also improve students’ education by integrating traditional approaches. However, this integrated learning strategy will work effectively when the role of cell phones in the learning process is recognized.

7. Document Class Notes

With cell phones, students can take photographs of their class notes. This will enable them to remember essential information. Also, capturing notes with a cell phone camera will provide students with a digital record of class content and make it easier to review and study. Particularly, students with learning difficulties can benefit from this as it helps with information retention.

8. Digital Text Books

Students can carry their learning materials more easily by substituting their bulky textbooks with cell phones. This will reduce physical strain and make the learning environment more environmentally friendly. Additionally, it guarantees that students can have all of their resources on a single, small device.

9. Language Learning

By installing language learning apps on mobile phones, students can practice and enhance their language skills. Mostly, all the language learning apps will contain interactive exercises, multimedia content, and pronunciation guides. So, all these features will help students to enhance the overall quality of the language learning process.

10. Develop Responsibility

If cell phones are allowed in schools with some restrictions, then students will learn how to use technology properly and prepare themselves for the digital world. In specific, permitting cell phones in schools teaches students the significance of digital etiquette, privacy, and online safety.

11. Collaboration

Students can collaborate on group assignments and share documents using collaboration apps or cloud-based tools on their mobile devices. This encourages communication, teamwork, and the growth of critical collaborative skills that are necessary in the workplace.

12. Digital Note-taking

If you are permitted to take cell phones in school, then you need not scribble notes. Instead, practice taking notes digitally. It will behave like a magical note where you can organize, draw, and scribble down ideas all in one location.

13. Get Real-time Updates

Having a cell phone will help school students to stay informed with real-time updates. Particularly, students may receive critical notifications straight to the phone from the teacher so that they will be aware of assignments, school activities, and surprises.

14. Good for Teachers

With a cell phone, teachers can conduct online classes and teach physically absent students. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, millions of educational institutions began conducting online courses via mobile phones. Moreover, even with a mobile phone, teachers who have access to students outside of the classroom can also effectively organize lesson plans and virtual sessions.

15. Global Connectivity

By using phones, students can connect with friends and obtain news and perspectives from around the world. Furthermore, communicating with peers across the globe via mobile phones will encourage global perspectives and cultural understanding. Also, having access to news and information from around the world will foster critical thinking and a more complete understanding of current affairs.

Also Read: 15 Best Places to Do Homework For Students

Benefits of Cell Phone Use for Students in School

Listed below are some benefits that students will get by using cell phones in school

  • In case of medical or any other emergency, students can quickly reach out to their parents and teachers.
  • By using the internet on the phone, students can collect information for their homework, look up facts, read articles, or watch educational videos online.
  • The calendars and alarms on the phone help students organize their study schedules and set homework reminders. This in turn enhances their time management skills.
  • By using educational apps for mobile phones, students can learn math, languages, and subjects interactively.

Wrapping Up

So far, in this blog, we have discussed some major reasons why cell phones should be allowed in school. Even though cell phones distract students from learning, the benefits they offer are plenty. Especially, with cell phones students can read a lot and update their subject knowledge. Also, they can gather information for their assignments on the internet using smartphones and complete their task before the deadline.

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Students who experience difficulties with writing assignments can approach us. On our team, we have proficient academic writers from different educational backgrounds to offer cheap and best assignment help online .

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AL.com

Alabama eyes limiting student use of cell phones at school

Alabama’s state board of education members are undecided about how to deal with student cell phone use in schools.

State Superintendent Eric Mackey told board members in December that they couldn’t outright ban cell phones from schools, but he would like to give some additional guidance to districts.

“There are a lot of states talking about cell phones in schools,” Mackey told board members. “And in most cases, it’s all negative.” And the problem goes beyond taking away students’ attention, he said.

“We’ve even had issues where students send threatening messages to other students during the school day,” he said, “and, of course, our local school districts are having to deal with that.”

“It’s a big issue that has been discussed among state boards,” board member Stephanie Bell said. “We really have problems, and they’re discipline problems.”

Mackey said Florida is the only state where lawmakers have restricted cell phone use in schools, prohibiting their use during class time. Some Florida schools have taken it a step further, requiring phones to be stored for the entire school day. The Tampa Bay Times reported teachers, parents and students said one Florida middle school is better without cell phones.

With plenty of research now showing the harmful effects of phone-associated behaviors like cyberbullying and mental health issues, schools across the country are taking steps to restrict access to cell phones during the school day.

Alabama school districts have a hodge-podge of rules about students using cell phones at school. Some prohibit them during the school day, others allow them to be used on breaks and at lunch.

Mackey said Montgomery County schools is the only district to ban cell phone use during the school day district-wide and so far, so good. Students are required to lock their phone into a magnetically-sealed pouch made by Yondr which stays locked until the end of the school day.

Elmore County’s Stanhope Elmore High School started using Yondr pouches in the 2022-23 school year, and Macon County started using them in mid-October .

Montgomery County schools’ communications director Jade Jones shared results of a staff survey measuring the impact of a no cell phone policy through December with AL.com :

  • 68% of staff indicated more productivity among students,
  • 63% of staff indicated reductions in classroom distractions, and
  • 61% of staff indicate increased student engagement.

Seven in 10 staff said the policy should be continued, she added.

Mackey said the board could take some kind of action, while still leaving it up to local school boards to set their own rules for their students.

“We went through a period where teachers worried ‘do we have enough computers’ and they were encouraging you to bring your phone and get it out, do research on your phone and use it for a calculator,” Mackey said. “That seems to have been a curve that we’ve now gone beyond. Part of that is because we’ve been able to buy devices for pretty much all of our students.”

“I do think all of the evidence seems to be that if students don’t have cell phones,” Mackey said, “things are better during the day.”

©2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit al.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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How the states are handling smartphones in schools ExcelinEd in Action Statehouse Spotlights

How do you feel about banning cell phones in the classroom? Young children's access to social media? In Episode 2 of the ExcelinEd in Action Statehouse Spotlights, where policy meets advocacy, our hosts share how the states are tackling social media and smartphones in schools this legislative session.   With insights from ExcelinEd in Action’s senior legislative director for Florida, Nathan Hoffman, and legislative director for the Great Lakes region, Evan Eagleson—hosts Tom Greene and Ashley Mullins explore the pros and cons of banning cell phones to foster a focused learning environment.   Links to resources from the episode:  Alabama eyes limiting student use of cell phones at school - al.com  Utah Governor to Schools: Remove Cellphones During Class Time – The 74 (the74million.org)  Teens Get Hundreds of Smartphone Notifications Daily: Study (webmd.com)  ‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools | Unesco | The Guardian  Mobile phone use to be banned in schools in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  Remember to join the conversation on social media!   ExcelinEd in Action (@ExcelinAction) / X (twitter.com)    ExcelinEd in Action (@excelinedinaction) • Instagram     ExcelinEd in Action on Facebook  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  1. Will more student access to smartphones in school improve learning?

    research on cell phones in the classroom

  2. Mobile Learning: The Growing Role of the Smartphone in Education

    research on cell phones in the classroom

  3. Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Finally! Research-based proof

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    research on cell phones in the classroom

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    research on cell phones in the classroom

  6. Why Phones Should Be Used In Class

    research on cell phones in the classroom

COMMENTS

  1. Experts see pros and cons to allowing cellphones in class

    Bans may help protect classroom focus, but districts need to stay mindful of students' sense of connection, experts say. Students around the world are being separated from their phones. In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 77 percent of U.S. schools had moved to prohibit cellphones for nonacademic purposes.

  2. PDF Mobile phones in the classroom: Policies and potential pedagogy

    In contrast to current educators, 45% supported the use of mobile phones in the classroom (while 25% did not), compared to earlier research that found only one-fourth of the preservice teachers supported their use. More than half of the preservice teachers (58%) indicated that mobile phones support student learning, whereas far fewer (21% ...

  3. The effect of cellphones on attention and learning: The influences of

    The present study adds to previous research by showing new ways in which cellphones serve as distractions in classroom setting and impair learning (Dietz & Henrich, 2014; Thapa et al., 2015; Wood et al., 2012). Specifically, this study strengthens the understanding of the time when attention is most likely to decrease during learning and the ...

  4. Do smartphones belong in classrooms? Four scholars weigh in

    Daniel G. Krutka: Use smartphones to encourage 'technoskepticism'. While the issue of smartphone use in schools is complicated, evidence suggests that spending more time on smartphones is ...

  5. Cellphone Distraction in the Classroom Can Lead to Lower Grades

    The experiment included 118 Rutgers-New Brunswick cognitive psychology students during one term of their course. Laptops, phones and tablets were banned during half of the lectures and permitted during the other half. When devices were allowed, students were asked to record whether they had used them for non-academic purposes during the lectures.

  6. PDF Cell Phones, Student Rights, and School Safety: Finding the Right ...

    The role of cell phones and other screen technologies in classrooms continues to generate much dis-cussion and heated debate in Canada, the U.S., and beyond. More specifically, how to best manage the increasing ubiquity of cell phones in schools continues to challenge teachers, pedagogical leaders, ad-ministrators, and policymakers alike.

  7. The impact of smartphone use on learning effectiveness: A ...

    This study investigated the effects of smartphone use on the perceived academic performance of elementary school students. Following the derivation of four hypotheses from the literature, descriptive analysis, t testing, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analysis, and one-way multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) were performed to characterize the relationship between smartphone ...

  8. Cell Phones in the Classroom: Teachers' Perspectives of Inclusion

    Abstract. Historically viewed as a disruption by teachers, cell phones have been banned from 69% of classrooms (Common Sense Media, 2009). The increased ubiquity and instructional features of cell phones have prompted some teachers to re-evaluate the ban and consider the benefits associated with allowing cell phones in the classroom.

  9. The Impact of Smartphone Use on Course Comprehension and Psychological

    Although a substantial body of research has found that cell phone use in the classroom is associated with lower academic achievement (e.g. Amez & Baert, 2020), fewer studies have examined the effects of cell phone use on students' psychological well-being in the classroom setting, and even fewer have examined the impact of cell phone use ...

  10. Smartphones usage in the classrooms: Learning aid or interference

    Many educational institutions, especially higher education institutions, are considering to embrace smartphones as part of learning aids in classes as most students (in many cases all students) not only own them but also are also attached to them. The main question is whether embracing smartphones in classroom teaching enhances the learning or perhaps an interference. This paper presents the ...

  11. Cellphones in Schools: A Huge Nuisance and a Powerful Teaching Tool

    Cellphones are both a powerful learning tool and huge distractions for kids. Figuring out how to make the most of them is "really tricky," said Taylor, a fan of technology in the classroom who ...

  12. The Use of Mobile Phones in Classrooms: A Systematic Review

    The use of mobile phones/devices for educational purposes can support and enhance the learning process, anytime and anywhere [20, 21]. Mobile phones offer various features such as word-processing ...

  13. The Impact of Cell Phones on Student Attention in the Classroom

    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. "The presence of one's smartphone enables on-demand access to information, entertainment... and more," the study concludes. "However, our research suggests that these benefits—and the ...

  14. The Impact of Smartphone Use on Course Comprehension and ...

    Although a substantial body of research has found that cell phone use in the classroom is associated with lower academic achievement (e.g. Amez & Baert, 2020), fewer studies have examined the effects of cell phone use on students' psychological well-being in the classroom setting, and even fewer have examined the impact of cell phone use ...

  15. Why Schools Should Ban Cell Phones in the Classroom—and Why Parents

    Why Schools Should Ban Cell Phones in the Classroom—and Why Parents Have to Help New study shows it takes a young brain 20 minutes to refocus after using a cell phone in a classroom ... BU Today spoke with Renstrom about the latest study and research. Q & A with Joelle Renstrom. BU Today: Let me get right to the point. Do we as a society need ...

  16. Mobile phones: The effect of its presence on learning and memory

    Other researchers have posited that simply the presence of a cell phone may have detrimental effects on learning and memory as well. Research has shown that a mobile phone left next to the participant while completing a task, is a powerful distractor even when not in use [11,12]. Their findings showed that mobile phone participants could ...

  17. Mobile phones in the classroom

    Overall, this study proposes that mobile devices are a suitable learning tool for the classroom. 'There is clear evidence that many pupils feel that they are deriving educational benefit from the use of their devices,' the report says. 'They are using many of the features of their devices and often finding creative ways to employ these ...

  18. Cell Phones as Instructional Technology in the Civics Classroom: Key

    However, cell phones can distract students, constrain their development of crucial research skills, and hamper face-to-face classroom interactions. These conflicting factors have resulted in wide variations in cell phone policies across and within schools, with some institutions and teachers fully embracing their instructional capacities and ...

  19. Cell Phones in the Classroom: Expected (and Unexpected) Effects

    Classroom Implications. Ward's research, I think, gives us some clear pointers about cell phones in classrooms: the farther away the better. Specifically, it contradicts some teaching advice I'd gotten a few years ago. Some have advised me that students should silence their phones and put them on the desk in front of them.

  20. PDF University Student's Perspectives on Using Cell Phones in Classrooms

    increasing the demand of technology (Joseph, 2012). Recent research on communication technology (Internet seen as positive, 2015) reports that smart phones plays a significant role in all kinds of people in order to be ... scrutinize the relationship between the usage of cell phones in classroom and the academic performance of students. A ...

  21. The Educative Potential of Cell Phones in the Social Studies Classroom

    This manuscript provides an overview of recent research in teen access and use of cell phones inside and outside of the social studies classroom. Furthermore, it provides social studies teachers, researchers, and community members with cell phone-based activities, resources, and strategies to advance student learning in the social studies.

  22. Should Cellphones Be Permitted in Classrooms? Teachers Offer These

    Finally, I provide opportunities for students to use their phones as tools in the classroom (looking up definitions, check-in surveys, creating videos, Kahoot, etc.). Phones are a part of our society, and unless we decide to eliminate phones from society as a whole, we will not be able to eliminate them from our classrooms.

  23. 10 Cons of Having Cell Phones in Schools

    Just take look at the statistics on how cell phones make cheating easier; a study from The Benenson Strategy Group in 2009 stated that 35% of the surveyed students have used cell phones to cheat ...

  24. In Our View: Enforce cellphone restrictions in schools

    Among the issues facing public education, discussions with teachers inevitably settle upon a preeminent problem — phones. Smartphones have given students — and adults — access to the world ...

  25. Cell Phones in the Classroom: Are we Dialing up Disaster?

    Because of the near ubiquitous presence of cell phone technology among teens in the United States, schools are beginning to explore the use of cell phones as a learning tool. This paper explores the implementation of a pilot program using cell phones in a pre-calculus classroom. Included is a description of the implementation of the pilot, an ...

  26. Sen. Cotton pushes for no phones in the classroom, while Prairie ...

    The act calls for a study by the Department of Health and Human Services on how cell phones in school impact student learning. The act would cost five million dollars per year from 2024 through 2028.

  27. 15 Reasons Why Cell Phones Should Be Allowed in School

    Cell phones provide students with a wealth of knowledge. In specific, with mobile phones, students can research several topics, use educational apps, and learn outside of the classroom. Furthermore, with the internet at their fingertips, students may readily delve into topics that fascinate them or investigate complex themes.

  28. Alabama eyes limiting student use of cell phones at school

    Alabama school districts have a hodge-podge of rules about students using cell phones at school. Some prohibit them during the school day, others allow them to be used on breaks and at lunch.

  29. ‎ExcelinEd in Action Statehouse Spotlights: How the states are handling

    How do you feel about banning cell phones in the classroom? Young children's access to social media? In Episode 2 of the ExcelinEd in Action Statehouse Spotlights, where policy meets advocacy, our hosts share how the states are tackling social media and smartphones in schools this legislative session.