For our Ed Tech project my pod, Andrew, Chris, Claire, and myself wanted to look into the topic of smartphones in the classroom we each did some research on an aspect of the topic. I focused on the relationship between cellphone use and academic achievement. I found that while there are many studies on this topic the vast majority are correlational rather than experimental. For this reason it can be difficult to know if it’s the cellphone use itself that causing the effect on academics or if both the academic effects and the cellphone use are caused by something else.
As we discussed in the video the question of what to do about cellphones in schools is a very tricky one. On one hand it does look like they have a generally negative impact on learning, and can negatively impact the mental health of young people. However, taking cellphones away entirely is also has its own issues, and feels paternalistic. One step I believe would help somewhat and can be widely agreed on is that social media companies should have a greater responsibility to enforce their own age policies on their sites.
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