Phone Usage Has Caused More Harms Than Good In Our Schools And On The Learners

I came across a discussion on facebook where notable Nigerians who have held public offices in the past and recent government debated vigorously on the consequences of allowing the use of phones in modern day classrooms. The debate delved into a research document released by the Norwagiean government, advocating for the return of the old system of learning in school. The government in that country has started in an unprecedented way building libraries where books will be stocked for learning.

As a teacher who has seen the in and out of the good and bad side of allowing mobile and internet connected phones in schools, I will advocate for traditional teaching methods instead of giving access to learners to bring phones to the classroom. The disadvantages are truly enormous.

There is no doubt that technology helps learners to learn fast and comprehend the concept but if the process is not well monitored it could boomerang. I will take a moment in the succeeding paragraphs to explain the level of havoc that phone usage has cost the learners and the entire school system in our nation and across the world.

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Harms Caused By Allowing The Use of Phones In Our Schools And Colleges

The fist case recorded when we allowed phones in the classroom was distraction and divided attention. As you know, android phones and all other kinds of smart phones comes with some applications that is created by Attention Engineers. These applications were designed in such a way that once you log in to it, it could cause addiction. Little wonder you see children attached to games and cartoons on mobile phones.
Let's call this attention divider , Distraction. A learner could be in the class while an educator is teaching a concept and he or she may be engrossed with the phone, engaged in playing a game or any other activity that may not be outrightly beneficial to him at the moment.

Cheating and dependening on the internet to get answer for any exam has become the order of the day. Many students now depend on shortcuts to passing exams than in reading and burning night candles. This is a threat to the ailing education syst across the world. Recently, some pages were discovered on Facebook to be selling exam questions and even providing answer to examination questions. This has destroyed the whole process of education in the land. Excellence is now far from the school system.

In the year 2024 alone, more than a million teenagrs of school age bracket were reported to have surfed pornographic content during school hours. This is an indication that most of the children who are within the school age bracket did not have their phones restricted from such sites. Phones should as a matter of fact not be allowed in our schools because the learners would be exposed to inappropriate content that could lead them to abuses.

Since most schools do not put into place restriction bars as to what a learner can have access to on the phone, the policy of allowing phones in schools should just be barred to secure the future of the learners.

There is also the trending disrespect for elders that is making the round on sevetalmsocoal media platform. Most of the displayed disrespect is carried out by teenagers. These set of humans now take the advantage of farness from other people who are usually older than them speak to them without any form of honour.

However, it is good to expose the learners to modern gadgets so as to make them compete favourably with learners across the globe but the use of phone in schools is in now way a good policy. It has to go.