Educators have realized that teenagers’ attention is increasingly becoming worse at high school. The modern technological landscape is the major cause for this issue due to the use of mobile phones inside and outside the classroom. The use of these devices makes adolescents develop the habit of searching for instant information and swift browsing, which empoverish the concentration span and produces anxiety. Furthermore, attention is also diminished by the use of cellular phones in the classroom because students do not pay attention to teachers while using their phones. To address these problems, teenagers should be encouraged to stay more focused on certain pieces of digital information to improve their attention abilites. Moreover, mobile phone usage in the classroom should be restricted to instructional tasks, thereby having students’ full attention on the teacher.
Teenagers use mobile phones to find different pieces of information fast and stay briefly on each piece, only to look for another. This habit has affected their concentration and attention spans, as the brain becomes accustomed to the ephimeral experience of using information superficially. Psychological research has shown that students who use mobile phones daily have higher levels of anxiety due to their constant search for new input. To counteract this habit, educators should encourage students to stay longer on important information, which helps them improve their attention span and reduce anxiety.
Furthermore, mobile phone usage in the classroom should be limited to improve students’ attention to the teachers. While teenagers are occupied looking at their phones, they cannot concentrate on educational instruction. Last decade’s statistics show that a high percentage of teenagers take their phones to the classroom, and most teachers complain about their struggles to get students’ attention. To address this problem, educational institutions in Europe have decided to ask students to leave their mobile phones in lockers outside of the classroom when they are not needed for educational instruction.
In conclusion, mobile phones affect negatively teenagers’ attention in the classroom due to fast scrawling and the inability to pay attention to teachers while using phones for personal reasons. Consequently, students should be encouraged to focus longer on specific pieces of information, and phones should be limited to educational instruction. Educational institutions globally should implement effective measures to the use of mobile phones in the classroom because they are a potent tool to improve students’ learning.