Have you ever found yourself distracted in class by technology or wouldn’t focus because your phone was going off?

You are not alone. It is easy to find students who cannot go a minute without checking their phone during class as they either received an email, text message, or something new on social media. Technology is the new way of life for kids of all ages, but this overwhelming focus on technology has affected kids from middle school to high school because seeing what’s happening on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram is often seen as more important than what is being covered in class.

In her article “Age of Distraction: Why It’s Crucial for Students to Learn to Focus,” author Katrina Schwartz cites Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and the author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. One key point that Schwartz focuses on from Goleman is the subject of multitasking. Goleman states, “When people say they’re ‘multitasking,’ what they are really doing is something called ‘continuous partial attention,’ where the brain switches back and forth quickly between tasks. The problem is that as a student switches back and forth between homework and streaming through text messages, their ability to focus on either task erodes.”

Casey Staten, a senior at Roosevelt High School, says that he feels he can multitask. “I feel I can multitask; I am very capable of doing work and using my phone; and it’s not hard for me to do,” says Staten.

Jordan Horm, a junior at Bowie High School, says that she cannot multitask at all. “I always try to multitask but, when it comes to doing work and using my phone, it’s so hard; it’s like my brain doesn’t know how to function,” says Horm.

Dealing with distraction is something Goleman thinks that this generation has to learn. “What we need to do is be sure that the current generation of children has the attentional capacities that other generations had naturally before the distractions of digital devices,” he says.

To teens, their phone is often the most important part of their world, and this is why fears related to the level of distraction for teens is so high. Paint Branch junior Cellou Kouyate states, “My phone is my life; I can’t go a day without it. It takes my attention away from my work within seconds.”

Paying attention in school is, obviously, what teens are expected to do, but when the class lesson or content starts to slow down, students become bored and look to their phone for entertainment or inspiration. “Our teachers say we should be worried about our homework and schoolwork because that’s all that matters at this point in time,” says Paint Branch freshman Jordan White, “but they don’t understand that, as a teen, social media is more important.”

Schwartz notes that Goleman takes on the topic of easy distraction and teens’ inability to fight the urge to take out their phones. “I don’t think the enemy is digital devices,” says Goleman. “It’s about using the devices smartly but also having the capacity to concentrate as you need to, when you want to.”