Essay Example on Smartphones: Benefits and Risks for Students

Introduction

Smart technology has many benefits in our lives, with Smartphones being among the top essential gadgets. Cell phones have made studying easy for students as they make it easy to access the internet and online libraries and get study materials which make learning more comfortable than the past years when having a cell phone was almost impossible. However, students should not be allowed to carry them to school because it is harmful to them and their learning process. Students with cell phones in class tend to have less attention in class; hence they exhibit low performances.

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Cell phones cause distraction because despite the phones, making it easier for the students to access online materials to use to enhance their studies, they use them more for personal amusements. The notification features in the cell phones alert the students of new information that they should access in their social media accounts, and this leads to a loss of concentration (Holler 78). Instead of focusing on their lecturers and tutors in class, they suddenly start scrolling through their phones to check what the notification is about. As soon as they get in their social media platforms, they stop listening to their teachers and from the lack of understanding in class, their performance decreases.

Cell phones cause emotional distress to the students, mostly due to the rising need to make their online friends from social media platforms happy. Many students struggle to live as they see their online friends live, and this makes them have stress searching for the best lives, which most of them cannot afford (Holler 78). The phones hence create detrimental effects on the mental wellbeing of the students, and they are unable to concentrate in class.

Cyberbullying is another factor in the usage of cell phones by the students that contributes to their emotional distress. Many people use the internet to continuously harass young people, most of who are students (Barack 6). When the scholars carry their phones in school, the bullying continues throughout the day in class and in all other places they visit in the school that day. They are therefore unable to concentrate as they spend most of their time trying to deal with the developing feud.

Reduces Co-Curricular Activities and Physical Education

Most students who have cell phones in school spend all their time on the phones trying to play a game or follow up on developing stories in their social media platforms. They, therefore, hide or refuse to engage themselves in physical activities when all other students are in the field or in the respective clubs that help them develop their physical being away from class (Holler 78). Most students prefer playing games in their phones such as football games to playing the actual football game in the field with other students. This trend of lacking physical activities and practice cause the students to be dull when they go back to class and most of the time, they are unable to concentrate. Others think of the game throughout the next class, and they only wish for the lesson to be over so that they can continue with the game.

Cell Phones Distract Other Students

Students who carry phones to school do not put them in silence mode, and they become a distraction to the whole class when they ring in the middle of a class session. Teachers from various schools have reported that whenever a cell phone rings in class, the attention of all class members turns to the student with the phone leading to a waste of time (Barack 6). There is also a lot of movement in class when students have cell phones with them, especially as they go out to receive a call which also causes distractions. They are passed by important information when they are outside, and the class is continuing.

Cell phones Affect the Social Lives of Students

Schools are not just a place to gain education and prepare students for their careers. They also create a chance for them to interact with other students and form a social circle that teaches them how life is in school and the real world outside school (Holler 78). When students are allowed to have cell phones in school, their social lives are affected as they prefer having friends from the internet to having friends from their schools. They focus so much on the things happening to people they do not know in different parts of the world but care less about the issues affecting the students seated next to them (Holler 78). This affects the students who use the phones as their brain development is negatively affected, and they are unable to take part in activities planned by the school, such as school trips.

Cell Phones lead to Bullying among the Students

Children at a young age often develop disagreements and dislike towards other students, and when they are allowed to have cell phones in their schools, they use them to bully other kids. The students may pick quarrels with each other and start posting lousy statements about one of them in their class or school (Barack 6). This trend increases the rates of bullying and fights as some of them fight back, which increases the number of fights reported in a school daily. Some fights are so severe that the victims are admitted in hospitals with significant injuries with some of them succumbing to the injuries inflicted on them by a fellow student.

Some students are affected so much by the comments they read about themselves from the posts by other students in the school that they suffer from anxiety and depression. The depression causes the performance of such students to reduce drastically, and they start missing school due to illnesses that emerge from depression (Barack 6). To some, the depression is so severe to the extent that they attempt to commit suicide if a teacher or their parents do not realize early that the child is mentally suffering.

Unhealthy Competition

Students with cell phones in school lead to unnecessary competition as they struggle to be noticed as those with the most expensive phones in their class. Such competition affects them because they find it hard concentrating in class. After all, they are always researching the latest cell phones and where they can find them (Barack 6). The competition leads to the creation of groups based on their parent's background with those from rich families that can afford to buy them the most expensive cell phones separating themselves from the middle class and poor ones who cannot afford them. These separations lead to increased fights in the school, and the lack of unity as students from one group cannot help students from the other group even in educational matters (Barack 6). They also cause some students, especially those from deprived backgrounds, to feel unwanted and most of them engage in dangerous activities so that they can fit in the schools' top groups.

Conclusion

Students often use their cell phones to the game, meet new people on social media platforms, and bully other students instead of utilizing the phones to access study materials on the internet that can help improve their performance. Allowing cell phones in school is a danger to the performance of the students as well as to their physical and mental development. The management of schools around the world should ban the usage of cell phones in college as it contributes to more vices than virtues. Parents should also restrict the time that their children spend on their cell phones as well as what they are doing with them. They should ensure that they take the cell phones from them before leaving for school and returning them after they are through with their assignments and other chores at home.

Works Cited

Barack, Lauren. "High School Students Use Cell Phones in Class-but Not for Schoolwork, Says Study." School Library Journal, 8 Jan. 2013, www.slj.com/?detailStory=high-school-students-use-cell-phones-in-class-but-not-for-schoolwork-says-study.

Holler, David. "Cell Phones in Minnesota High Schools: Principals' Perceptions of Impact and Policy." (2019). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/61fa/485bd6f6e0bb039fc5a13d68939db2741332.pdf