Cell phone availability is a major issue in schools. Many people have different opinions on the matter, but in most cases a phone simply distracts a student from the work they should be doing in class. While it might be slightly irritating when a teacher tells us to get off our phone, nine times out of ten whatever has our attention can wait.

We’ve all been guilty of being on our phones in class, whether it’s Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, BeReal, or a game like Baseball 9 or Retro Bowl. These apps are truthfully non-essential. Many teachers, like Sarah Summers, have gotten so fed up with students being on their phones that they have made tough phone policies nearly banning phones from the classroom.

 “I’ve direct link between cell phones and students not getting any work done,” Summers said.

Summers has a policy set up called a citizenship grade that starts at 100 points, everytime a phone is out the student loses 10 points giving an incentive for not having phones out. 

“Students are more engaged when their phones aren’t around,” Summers said.

Other teachers, like Marcus Merrifield, have found that students have had more problems with their phones since COVID.

 “Before COVID, phones weren’t really as much of a distraction as they are today,” Merrifeild said.

Merrifield has found that he didn’t need to be as strict when it came to phones before COVID. 

“Since COVID, students have shown teachers need to be stricter with phones,” Merrifield said.

While in most cases students don’t need to be on their phones in class there are some exceptions where phones could be necessary. For example, many students like to listen to music while they do their work during their personal time in class. Many students also need to have a phone handy in case their parents or guardians need to contact them directly. While most teachers allow students to utilize music, or contact their family.

Many of us know of the endless “rabbit holes” we can spiral down while on the Internet, or a social media platform we open on our phones thinking “I’m  just going to be on my phone for a few minutes.” Then we look up at the clock and we’re out of time. The result? An entire class period of work time wasted because we couldn’t get off of our phones.

We can all agree that phones are fun, and essential for communicating with friends and family, but it’s clear that we need to put down the phones.

Because in the end they simply distract us from getting our work done and irritate our teachers.