Education: Phones Distract from Learning and Social Interaction

Teachers and students are filing back into school buildings. But unlike generations prior, many are shuffling through the doors with their necks craned down, staring into smartphones. For a number of years now, schools experimented with cellphone inclusion into schools and even classrooms. The experiment was a failure and it’s time we get phones out.

In 2009, before smartphones became ubiquitous, 91 percent of schools had some form of restriction on phones according to the National Center for Education Statistics. As phones became more popular, schools accepted various arguments for allowing them into the classroom. Schools need to help students develop healthy phone habits, some argued, and others considered their communicative capacity a boon for safety. Accordingly, by 2015, only 65 percent of schools put formal restrictions on phone usage.

About the Author

Daniel Buck

Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Teachers and students are filing back into school buildings. But unlike generations prior, many are shuffling through the doors with their necks craned down, staring into smartphones. For a number of years now, schools experimented with cellphone inclusion into schools and even classrooms. The experiment was a failure and it’s time we get phones out.

In 2009, before smartphones became ubiquitous, 91 percent of schools had some form of restriction on phones according to the National Center for Education Statistics. As phones became more popular, schools accepted various arguments for allowing them into the classroom. Schools need to help students develop healthy phone habits, some argued, and others considered their communicative capacity a boon for safety. Accordingly, by 2015, only 65 percent of schools put formal restrictions on phone usage.