Opinion: Mobile Phones and Schools

Dr Simon Paul Atkinson has spent over thirty years in educational technology, academic development and professional development roles. This blog represents a personal reflection on the part of the author and does not represent an official position on the part of Independent Schools of New Zealand. Versions of these thoughts have already been shared via sijen.com and flanz.org.nz.

The National-led coalition government in New Zealand made one of its early education priorities the banning of mobile phones in schools (Rawhiti-Connell, 2023). Their ‘away for the day’ guidance to schools envisages students travelling safely to school and then putting away their phone for the rest of the day, including break and lunch times. The aspiration is that children are more focused on their classroom learning and out getting fresh air during breaktimes, playing and interacting with each other.

While the intent is not without its merits, and research does suggest that phone ‘addiction’, or at least ‘compulsion’, is an unhealthy distraction at any time of the day, the hard and fast ‘rule’ may be ill-conceived in the current technology infused environment in which children are growing up.

Policy makers appear to have only partially absorbed the implications of the COVID pandemic. Fixated on the recognisable harm resulting in the lack of socialisation and human interaction (Girela-Serrano et al., 2022), and a desire to return to pre-digital school classroom and playground practices, there is a danger of jettisoning some of the advantages of access to digital devices, particularly where access to such devices is limited to the mobile phone.

Clearly there are issues with the self-distractive use of technology – or ‘absent presenteeism’ (Beeri & Horowitz, 2020), but connection is a part of the modern way of living. Learning to manage and balance the demands of technology must be an essential part of any educational experience (Lamb, 2023).

So, let’s review the arguments for and against mobile phones in schools.

Arguments Against Allowing Mobile Phones in Classrooms:

Recent academic research has delved into the impact of mobile phones in schools, particularly focusing on their negative aspects. Let us briefly review some of the findings:

1. Academic Performance: Research suggests that having phones in class negatively impacts test scores and long-term learning retention. Multitasking (such as texting while listening) hinders meaningful absorption of information (Bourdreau, 2022). The policy makers who want to ban phones from classrooms cite research that suggests in-class use damages academic performance, despite these studies nearly always being individual case studies with no control for other factors (not least quality of teaching) (Felisoni & Godoi, 2018).
2. Bullying and Social Isolation: Mobile phones can be used for cyberbullying or exclusionary behaviour. Allowing phones may exacerbate social dynamics and lead to isolation. There is research from South Korea that suggests ‘problem’ mobile phone use correlates closely with cyberbullying. Educating individuals to use technology appropriately may offer a solution to a broader interpersonal issue (Shin & Kim, 2023). There is also an equity argument. The lack of a device on socio-economic or religious grounds risks leading to victimisation.
3. Distraction and Disruption: Phones can distract students from focusing on learning. The appeal of social media apps, games, and notifications risk diverting their attention away from class material. Ringing phones, notifications, and unauthorised use also disrupt the classroom environment. Students and teachers may struggle to maintain focus and discipline. The narratives around disruption and distraction are poorly evidenced in the research and are derived mostly from small scale observational studies. Some researchers argue that a ban, whatever its arguments for and against, may represent a valuable research opportunity into the social impact of mobile devices in classrooms (Selwyn & Aagaard, 2021).
4. Health Concerns: Some studies suggest potential health risks associated with prolonged phone use, such as eye strain, disrupted sleep patterns, and exposure to electromagnetic radiation. Recent studies of adolescent sleep patterns and mobile phone use do suggest there is a negative effect (de Sá et al., 2023).

Arguments For Allowing Mobile Phones in Classrooms:

1. Emergency Communication: Mobile phones provide a direct means for students to contact their parents or emergency services in case of urgent situations. Having phones readily available can enhance safety. Parents, now themselves Gen X and Gen Y, and more digitally literate than earlier generations often insist that they want the digital connection to their children throughout the day.
2. Parent-Teacher Communication: Parents can easily communicate with teachers via messaging apps or emails. This facilitates better collaboration and keeps parents informed about their child’s progress. This strikes me as not a particularly strong argument, given that parent-teacher communication, beyond the emergency contexts just cited, are achievable without students having phones in their possession (Paul, 2023).

There are stronger pedagogical arguments for allowing mobile digital access inside learning spaces that make more sense.

3. Educational Tools: Smartphones, when appropriately built into the learning process, can become powerful educational tools. They allow access to educational apps, e-books, and online resources, enabling personalised learning experiences. The issue here is that the use of any mobile device must be purposeful and engaging. There is a correlation between teacher practice and off-task mobile use. Bored students get distracted (Bolkan & Griffin, 2017).  
4. Research and Information: Students can quickly look up information during class discussions or assignments. This promotes independent research skills and keeps them informed (Kim et al., 2020).
5. Digital Literacy: Familiarity with mobile technology is essential in today’s digital world. Allowing phones in classrooms helps students develop digital literacy and adapt to technological advancements. There are long-standing arguments that learning needs to happen ‘where the kids are’ (Brooks-Young, 2010) and that effort should be made to overcome digital inequality and lack of access issues rather than prevent technology from encroaching on established patterns of teaching.
6. Micro–learning: The deconstruction of multi-year programmes of study into shorter defined elements of learning, in part in response to MOOCs and micro-credentials, lends itself neatly to the micro-learning opportunities afforded by mobile devices (Jahnke et al., 2020).

On Balance

The decision to allow mobile phones in classrooms involves balancing safety, educational benefits, and potential distractions. The impact of mobile phones in schools is clearly multifaceted. While mobile devices can be powerful educational tools, their potential for distraction, instruments of cyberbullying, and the potential negative effects on academic performance can be significant when not used appropriately.

Educators need to research and document classroom practice around attention, focus and grit and borrow from the experiences of fellow classroom practitioners, such as James Land, who found banning phones was both ineffective and detrimental to the communication norms he wished to instil in his students (Lang, 2020)

To remove digital devices from the classroom may put the focus back on the individual teacher ‘up-front’, but it will not turn back the generational predisposition for digital stimulation. Rather, it would be better to teach responsible digital engagement in and outside of the classroom. My personal view is that school classrooms should be a ‘let’s focus’ environment when appropriate. In some classes we may ask our students to put their mobiles into a phone rack at the front of the class, not to avoid distractions but because the task in hand does not require the device. In other classes we may want to encourage pairs or trios of students to share a common device to carry out a specific task. And in other contexts, having access to one’s own device may make sense throughout a lesson.

Community behaviours are always difficult to regulate. They require active leadership and training for all staff. A blanket ban on phones is too blunt an approach without follow-up policy. Recognition that a 7-year-old does not have the same user profile as a 17-year-old would be a good place to start. An acknowledgement that ‘absent presenteeism’ is not entirely due of smartphones, but it has been exasperated by it. And that engagement is what all good teachers aspire to and taking away a selective tool that can enable that does them no favours.

Personal View

I have no insight into the government policy space but it concerns me that the current ban is just the first stage of what should be a three stage policy implementation when little thought appears to have been spent on what happens after stage one.

Stage One: removing social media

The mobile phone as a means of making or receiving voice calls and phone messages, possibly even SMS text messages, need not be overly intrusive. The issue is largely the use and abuse of ‘social media’.

The distinction to be made is not whether students NEED to have access to a mobile phone in order to learn, both knowledge acquisition and associated cognitive skills, and social interpersonal and affective skills, (spoiler, they do not), it is rather a question as to WHETHER mobile phones are an appropriate means of exposing progressive generations of students to emerging technologies and the power they harness.

Until mobile phone manufacturers take their responsibility for limiting most egregious damage created by young people’s addiction to social media and introduce some form of ‘airflight mode’ for schools, ideally accurately GPS mapped and enforceable, the onus will be on school management, teachers and parents to enforce a ban. (Heads up to any of the major handset manufacturers, having a youth-safety mode function is a market share winner.)

Here in New Zealand, there is strong, though largely still anecdotal, evidence that playgrounds are noisier, more energetic and happier places since the ban was introduced, and that in-class attention is more sustained and better managed. There are suggestions that there is a detectable reduction in cyberbullying.

Stage Two: infuse technology

So, on balance taking the mobile phones, as an instrument of constant social distraction rather than as a tool for communication, out of schools makes sense. However, I would personally like to ensure that schools are supported to infuse technology throughout the curriculum. We need to consider what a technology infused school looks like, free of social media distraction. Schools might consider providing tablets for each student to ensure digital equity. Students need to learn how to manage their digital profile, articulate what a digital-twin persona might look like, express themselves digitally as well as learning just to be confident surfers, clickers and users of a wide variety of tools.

In less economically prosperous areas of the world the mobile phone provides a personal gateway to resources and interactivity and the price we pay, as a society, is the corrosive, addictive behaviour that social media creates. In wealthier areas I believe we can throw away the bathwater (social media handheld devices) without losing the baby (digitally immersive tools).

Stage Three: lobby handset manufacturers

Given that there is no incentive for the social media companies to face up to their responsibilities and curtail usage of their apps, they will simply continue, as the tobacco industry did before them and the food industry does today, to deny and deny, and obscure the worst of their excesses under the banner of ‘user choice’. We need to lobby leading device manufacturers, Apple, Samsung, Google, Sony, Motorola, Huawei, OnePlus, Nokia, Blackberry and LG, to step up and introduce serious zone based protections. And aggressively market them!

We don’t need social media apps in schools but we do need to enable access to technology in our classrooms

References

Beeri, I., & Horowitz, D. D. (2020). Reducing students’ ‘absent presenteeism’ and mobile misbehaviour in class: An empirical study of teacher perspectives and practices. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 29(2), 177–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2020.1731580

Bolkan, S., & Griffin, D. J. (2017). Students’ use of cell phones in class for off-task behaviors: The indirect impact of instructors’ teaching behaviors through boredom and students’ attitudes. Communication Education, 66(3), 313–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2016.1241888

Bourdreau, E. (2022, August 10). Weighing the Costs and Benefits of Cellphones in Schools [Harvard Graduate School of Education]. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/news/22/08/weighing-costs-and-benefits-cellphones-schools

Brooks-Young, S. (2010). Teaching with the tools kids really use: Learning with Web and mobile technologies. Corwin.

de Sá, S., Baião, A., Marques, H., Marques, M. do C., Reis, M. J., Dias, S., & Catarino, M. (2023). The Influence of Smartphones on Adolescent Sleep: A Systematic Literature Review. Nursing Reports, 13(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep13020054

Felisoni, D. D., & Godoi, A. S. (2018). Cell phone usage and academic performance: An experiment. Computers & Education, 117, 175–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.10.006

Girela-Serrano, B. M., Spiers, A. D. V., Ruotong, L., Gangadia, S., Toledano, M. B., & Di Simplicio, M. (2022). Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: A systematic review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-02012-8

Jahnke, I., Lee, Y.-M., Pham, M., He, H., & Austin, L. (2020). Unpacking the Inherent Design Principles of Mobile Microlearning. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 25(3), 585–619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-019-09413-w

Kim, H. J., Yi, P., & Hong, J. I. (2020). Students’ Academic Use of Mobile Technology and Higher-Order Thinking Skills: The Role of Active Engagement. Education Sciences, 10(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10030047

Lamb, A. (2023, March 13). Experts see pros and cons to allowing cellphones in class [Harvard Gazette]. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/experts-see-pros-and-cons-to-allowing-cellphones-in-class/

Lang, J. M. (2020). Distracted: Why students can’t focus and what you can do about it (First edition.). Basic Books, Hachette Book Group.

Paul, P. (2023, November 9). It’s Not Kids With the Cellphone Problem, It’s Parents. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/opinion/phone-ban-teens.html

Rawhiti-Connell, A. (2023, August 9). The arguments for and against a ban on phones in schools. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-bulletin/09-08-2023/national-to-ban-cell-phones-in-schools

Selwyn, N., & Aagaard, J. (2021). Banning mobile phones from classrooms—An opportunity to advance understandings of technology addiction, distraction and cyberbullying. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(1), 8–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12943

Shin, W., & Kim, H.-W. (2023). Problematic mobile phone use and cyberbullying perpetration in adolescents. Behaviour & Information Technology, 42(4), 424–443. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2104756