Phones today are very useful in many different ways, but teachers find them very distracting and a tool that’s not useful while in class.  I feel they aren’t a distraction and can be useful while learning. 

Phones can be used as a good alternative for help with work.  Phones can be good for taking notes, using learning and educational apps or even just researching facts for a project or an assignment. Phones can also be used to communicate emergencies or even just to take a quick break and communicate with friends or family. 

 Phones can help students focus better with getting their work done, and music is a key part in that. Not only does music block out distractions, but it can also help reduce stress, improve memory and enhance certain moods, according to Harvard Business Review.  

The Pew Research Center provides evidence that 72% of teachers say phones are a distraction. The Basin Republican Rustler reported on a survey that found other evidence. In Big Horn County School District in Wyoming, middle school and high school students were surveyed and 84.3% said phones aren’t a distraction, 68.5% said they were sometimes a distraction for other students, and 12% said they were a distraction for other students. 

In the same survey, 86.1% of students also shared that they use their phones to communicate with friends and family, and 32.4% of students answered they were used for schoolwork. And they also shared almost 27% of students have an emotional attachment to their phones.  

But this also can really depend on how you are, because Harvard Business Review also talked about being an introvert or extrovert, which can also play a part with phones being a distraction or not. If someone is an introvert, they’re more likely to not get distracted as easily, so you can listen to music and do your work at the same time and be good, but for an extrovert you could slightly get distracted more.  

But overall, phones aren’t a distraction.