At face value, it’s easy to see the kind of impact smartphones have had on the society around us. While it’s easy to shrug and dismiss smartphones as having no importance, especially in school, a little closer observation will have you know that’s not true.
Students have grown very attached to their phones. So much so that while the debate rages on about whether or not smartphones are necessary or not, other people continue to argue the opposite – phones are important.
What’s the truth, really? Do students need their phones that badly? And will banning them from school do us any good?
Cell phones and education became intractably connected to each other right from the start. Ever since their introduction in schools, experts have widely viewed them as a chance to serve as an equalizer across socioeconomic backgrounds. With access to a smartphone, everyone suddenly has access to the same swathe of material online as anyone else. But it’s not that easy.
Students with low literacy skills are more likely to lose concentration during class and use their phones for entertainment purposes during class. Finding ways to incorporate the positive impacts of smartphone use is a big challenge.
And yet, doing nothing throws away all the potential of having cell phones in college classrooms. It opens up a whole new world of learning to the student irrespective of their location.
Easy of remote study and ready availability of quality study material from top resources make it possible for students across the globe, irrespective of their background to stand at the same level as their counterparts studying in top colleges and universities.
If the smartphone is so great, you’d think college students and cell phones would have less controversy following them around. One of the main arguments for banning phones in school is their distractibility factor. It doesn’t take much to get bored, lose concentration during class and start using them,
For others, the ‘research’ argument, that having phones in school gives students a crutch to stand on is bogus. To them, all the research we need to do is already in books stocked in the library and notes given to students by their teachers. If students need to use the internet, computer labs exist in school for a reason.
Forget the myriad of best educational apps for iOS or the tons of apps that can help with productivity. According to them, getting to the crux of the problem will require drastically reducing how many college students have smartphones.
As it turns out, smartphones have much more valid use in and around school than a lot of us give them credit for.
One issue that will have to be exempted from any ban is the safety value that smartphones provide. For students with learning disabilities, e.g., people on the spectrum or anyone with special conditions such as diabetes, having a phone could be the difference between life and death. Not only do the phones keep track of vital signs, but they are also an important communication medium with primary caregivers.
Others also argue that the blame should fall on schools, rather than students. They have created a culture of dependence on smartphones because of the nature of education that is provided to us.
Anyone going to school today has little choice but to rely on a phone for various purposes. Class timetables are uploaded online, so are test results and, often, even the tests themselves.
And what’s the first place people turn to when they are stuck on their assignments? They don’t rush to the library or seek out their favourite teacher, that’s for sure.
Getting assignment help in the entire UK is easier than ever, thanks to how widespread the internet is, and that’s unlikely to change. The writing work that you can get done from the online writing services includes thesis, dissertation, term papers, homework, research papers and college essays.
In addition, many schools have turned to technology as a way to bring down costs. Physical textbooks are no longer used in various schools all around the US, opting instead for digital course work using online notes and e-books.
It’s no longer an argument about how many college students have smartphones. The conversation needs to be turned on its head. Let’s ask, instead, how many students don’t have smartphones, and how can we get more college students and cell phones together?
Smartphones present their fair share of problems among students. It would seem as though they are always distracted by them, and they fail to add any real value to people’s school lives.
Closer inspection of the situation lets us know that’s not necessarily true. Phones have dozens of uses, even within a classroom context. Banning them will ultimately do more harm than good. Instead, limits should be placed on how much they can be accessed and used within the school and class premises, not outright banning them,
