What do you do when you first get home from school? If you are like most teens, you probably change into comfortable clothes, get a snack, and maybe even take a nap. Of course, that nap means time when you are not being productive and some adults may advise against it as well as other forms of procrastination, but, unfortunately for many students, and myself, this is easier said than done.
When it comes to schoolwork we’re all well aware of the importance of finishing our assignments in a timely manner but in this digital age, it can be hard to focus. Knowing your phone is just right in front of you allowing you to scroll endlessly or text your friends instead of work makes distraction inevitable.
Our parents did not have the same access to technology that we have today which means the distractions we face today present a unique and even more challenging problem for our generation. Our phones open up the whole world to us with just a quick search. How could anyone focus on math when there’s a whole police investigation involving and bringing down some of our favorite music artists? Even if you’re not looking straight at the phone it can introduce problems. Just playing something like a song or YouTube video in the background while you work can easily take your attention away from the task at hand.
Phones have been proven to lower teen attention spans as well. Most sources note that the average time users spend on each TikTok or Instagram video is 10-15 seconds, which aligns with an article by Trishala Chokhani, an editor and writer for the sharing knowledge platform eLearning Industry. In her article “A Deep Dive Into the Shrinking Attention Span,” Chokhani cites a study by Microsoft Canada that reveals that the average attention span of a person dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds since the year 2000. Chokhani notes that this was the year of the widespread adoption of mobile phones, which have only gotten smarter and more distracting. Since we’re aware of the struggle to focus we must be proactive about efforts to fight it.
So how do we solve this? The solution starts with you.
Students can start regulating their own phone use by putting into place personal measures. In the article “Smartphone and Internet Addiction,” multiple authors offer tactics to help lower screen time like “not bringing your phone or computer to bed, picking up a hobby like reading or meditation in place of scrolling, and limiting the amount of times you check your phone each day.” The goal of setting these personal measures is…(make a point that you want to make here – it helps drive your opinion home)
In order for students to be successful in today’s digital world, measures must be taken to help them turn off their devices and refocus.One place that this could be fairly easily instituted is in schools
In a study reported on by Melissa Huey and David Giguere and posted by the National Library of Medicine in 2022, results found that “students who physically removed their smartphones from them throughout the duration of the class had significantly higher levels of comprehension and mindfulness in the course. In addition to that, students without their smartphones had significantly lower levels of anxiety.”
Teachers can also help with fighting the phones in the classroom. In the EdWeek article “Managing Cellphones in Classrooms: Tips From Teachers,” Arianna Prothero notes some of the ways teachers have handled phone use in the classroom. Prothero, a high school teacher, notes that some are as serious as “stapling the phone in a paper bag and having it next to the student,” while others take action such as offering “extra credit for any students who put their phones in a pouch during class.” The point is teachers, administrators, and adults in general are working on their own ways to fight phones, but without teens it wont work. It is not the job of others to get us off our devices and pay attention, it’s ours.
We are fully aware of the effect phones have on us everywhere we go. Teens have to be the ones to acknowledge their individual problem with technology and work to fix it within themselves first. We can only redirect our attention by choosing to do so.
