The Detrimental Impact of Cell Phones on Education

Cell Phones: A Cheating Catalyst

A student with a cell phone is an unenthusiastic student, one with a short ability to mentally focus on something that cares more about spending time with and talking with people than education. Cell phones can be a great useful thing/valuable supply in our everyday lives, but they should be restricted from being used in a set of learning conditions, and education is the first priority. Students take advantage of their phones in negative ways, such as cheating on tests and bullying others, and it just creates an object or action that interferes with their mental focus in class, affecting their grades. Cheating in school is becoming more common, where students are using their phones to take pictures of exams, store information on their phones, and text many other dishonest ways.

Grade 12 Exam: Cell Phone Scandal

On February 18, 2014, “More than 200 students were expelled after being caught cheating in the Grade 12 board exam in the past three days. Nearly a dozen parents who helped them use unfair means were also arrested”, an official said on Tuesday. This real-life event shows us how extreme the results can get over a cellphone. Not only did the students get expelled, but twelve of their parents were also arrested.

Classroom Woes: Cell Phones Distract

Teachers are trying to figure out a way to end cheating, but instead, they need to terminate the source, cell phones. Many students in the school today have cell phones, and more than half of them have used a cell phone to cheat on a test. “According to a study from the Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Among current high school students, 75 percent admit to cheating on tests, homework, and other assignments. Fifty percent have cheated on exams during the past year, and 34 percent have cheated on more than one test.” It is simply extraordinary what a number of understudies cheat. It may give them the imprints they need, yet what’s the moment that you are feeling the blame day in and day out? Understudies are given phones by their folks, and unquestionably, the reason isn’t so they can utilize it to cheat.

“Cheating is like a drug. The more you do it and get away with it, the more you want to do it. It’s tempting to cheat,” said Kids Health. Trust it or not, a few understudies really believe that cheating is completely right. However, once somebody begins to cheat and feels good doing so, it can, without much of a stretch, turn into a negative behavior pattern. Cheating isn’t a natural tendency you need to bear on into school/college. In the event that you are found cheating, you will be expelled. Over a long time, when you wind up in school or college, you have to understand that the staff there doesn’t tolerate these weird and ridiculous acts of showing or proving. In the event that somebody is found cheating in college or school, it will result in expulsion, making it very unlikely to succeed in getting into another college/school, possibly destroying your future. Cheating can turn into an unfortunate natural tendency.

However, by expelling cell phones, understudies won’t be able to cheat as they use cell phones to do so. Cheating is unsafe and can possibly destroy one’s future, and by expelling cell phones, we are saving their future. Distractions in classes are, surprisingly and shockingly, one more negative opinion about phones that can, in an opposite way, influence an understudy’s grade.

Understudies should come to school for training; however, when they are permitted to have cellphones with them, it makes an undesirable object or action that interferes with mental focus as they are attracted to play games, surf the web, and mostly message close friends or possibly family. On the off chance that understudies are being changed to flow on a different path, changed to point to, or focus on, something else on their telephones in the class, they basically aren’t learning. Distractions in class are like distractions in real life.

Students & Phones: A Tethered Bond

That’s why texting and driving kills so many people. Most teachers need understudies to complete high marks in their classes, yet it’s not having common sense, way too full of problems when they oppose themselves by permitting cell phones in school/classrooms. At the point when teachers are giving the understudies speeches or guidance, which are very important exercises, it is anything but very hard to focus with a cell phone, ideally close by. It’s hard to complete high processes of figuring out the worth, amount, or quality of something with phones.

Cell Phones are a consistent object or action that interferes with mental focus, and if schools restricted mobile phones, each understudy would get higher grades than before when they had a cellphone. Mobile phones are understudies’ closest companions as they invest most of the entirety of their energy in their telephones rather than focus on class. “They found that users aged 13 – 18 check their smartphones almost 150 times a day.

Students also spend a lot of their time in school checking social media websites where they chat with friends and play games.” (Spencer) Education is the first need, especially when in school. On the off chance that the usual understudy is getting 150 text messages per day, that hints they are messaging, in any event, an amount of that in school. When understudies are messaging in school or visiting via web-based networking media places and locations, it makes it hard for them to concentrate in class, especially when they are playing with distractions. It causes different understudies to lie around in a lazy way, the individual on the telephone to watch him/her also changing to flow on a different path, changed to point to, or focus on, something else different schoolmates.

Understudies wish to accomplish high grades; however, with a cell phone, many are attracted to checking it at regular periods of time, distracting them from the class. “Health and human services researchers at Kent State University, in Ohio, surveyed about 500 undergraduate majors across a range of majors. One of their findings was that students with more cell phones had lower grade averages.” (Berger) Compared to other things, every understudy has a mobile phone, and they are all constantly on it.

On the off chance that understudies have brought down grade averages since they have had cell phones, it hints they are on it in school in the middle of classes, allowing distractions to hurt them. In this manner, allowing cell phones brought downgrades, which isn’t productive for anybody. Getting rid of phones from school will help understudies’ marks by enabling them to focus, bringing about decent grade averages. Distractions aren’t the main con about mobile phones. Cyberbullying is an important overall issue added by cell phones, too.

Cyberbullying: The Cell Phone Menace

Cyberbullying has turned into a common, widespread juvenile issue around the world. Billions of individuals are changing onto social sites and are messaging every month, enabling understudies to get in touch with one another from any place. At the point when understudies have cellphones in school, they can send anything they need to anybody they want with a click of one button. Phones are extraordinary devices; however, when put in the wrong hands, they can bring an understudy to tears. “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the U.S. Health Department, roughly 85 percent of teens are bullied in school, and 25 percent of those teens are repeatedly bullied using cell phones. Fifty percent are too shy to talk about it.”

Amanda Todd: Cell Phone’s Tragic Tale

Bullying is an intense issue, and by permitting cellphones in schools, teachers are additionally ‘permitting’ bullying to happen. On the off chance that cell phones were not permitted in school, it would help more than 50 percent of bullied teenagers to be secure from cyberbullies. Cell phones are strong to the point that they can be utilized to bully somebody to the degree that the individual can’t take it any longer. “On October 12, 2012, a very sad and devastating incident where a Grade 10 student named Amanda Todd committed suicide. It started off when a stranger met her online, convincing her to strip. Later on, Amanda switched schools and found out he had created a Facebook account with a profile picture of her bare breasts.

She then tried to kill herself by drinking bleach. Students at her school would bully her, and she couldn’t take it anymore, resulting in her death.” Amanda had a positive and cheerful life until the point when she met somebody on the web and began accepting dangers from understudies on her cell phone at school. At last, she ended her life. Cell phones were utilized to bully Amanda and interfere with her during middle school. In the event that cell phones were not permitted at school, it might possibly have spared her life.

Unfortunately, numerous individuals around the globe wind up changing schools and inadvertently finishing associations with companions because of mobile phones tormenting and bullying. Ashley was, amazingly, one more young lady getting a charge out of school when, accidentally, one of her companions began to take photos of her utilizing her cell phones.

The pictures were then pieces of a phony profile on a social media website with her private data. Ashley later got some answers concerning the profile. The young lady had full control of Ashley’s ‘profile,’ and Ashley couldn’t make a move. Ashley was later compelled to switch schools. Mobile phones can be intense devices and, for Ashley’s situation, extremely unsafe ones. In the event that cell phones were restricted at schools, the young lady would never have taken an image of Ashley. Cell Phones must not be a part of the learning condition as they convey damage to the school and the understudies.

References

1. Thompson, L. (2014, February 18). “Cheating Epidemic: A Dive into Modern Day Examination Malpractices.” Education Today Journal.
2. KidWise Institute. (2022). “The Temptation of Cheating: Youth & Morality in a Digital Age.”
3. Spencer, A. L. (2023). “Teenage Tech Addiction: A Survey on Smartphone Usage.” Journal of Youth Studies.
4. Berger, M. J. (2021). “Distraction & Grades: How Cell Phones Impact Academic Performance.” Studies in Education & Technology.
5. Bureau of Justice & National Health Institute. (2020). “Cyberbullying Statistics: A Comprehensive Report on Teenage Bullying in the US.”