By: Kayla Comried [Vox Executive Editor]
Everyday technology is becoming more and more prominent in society. People are literally uploading their lives into digital devices. Americans have credit card information, relative information, and even their entire job stored on a palm sized device. Cell phones are the main way people connect to the world of technology, and these phones should be allowed in class at all times. They should be allowed because they are important and because they don’t have a negative effect on learning. Some may say that they are a distraction to our learning, but that is far from the truth.
The first reason cell phones should be allowed in class is because they are important. These phones are how this generation connects to the world, and that is not necessarily the generations fault. Many elders say, “That is the problem with todays generation. They always have those ‘things’ glued to their fingers.” This saying however, is far from reality. Those ‘things’ are glued to teens fingers because that is what we have been taught to do. This generation has been taught and shown the impact technology has on today’s world. That is reality. The reality that with the world they have set up can not live without technology. This however, is only one of the many reasons cell phones should be allowed in class.
Another reason cell phones should be allowed in class is because they don’t hurt learning. Not only do they not hurt it, they help it. When one has their cell phone they literally have the world at their fingertips. They can look up things and be constantly learning. Actually learning real things. Things that make a difference to them. Not necessarily learning the exact thing they are learning in class, but the things they want to know. With the world at someones fingertips they can do amazing things, and that is what school should be about.
The only reason teachers don’t want teens to have cell phones in school is because they say learning is not what they are use for. Teachers think that kids just go in Twitter and Instagram, and this assumption might be true, but the question is why do they care. When teens reach the high school level they have already made up their mind for learning. If they don’t want to learn they’re not going to. Period. The students however, that do want to learn are going to pay attention, and not be on their phone. Teachers need to allow kids to make this decision, and that is another reason why they should be allowed.
So as the times change, the rules need to change right along with it. Teens did not choose to live in a world where technology is so important, but they do. Teachers need to allow cell phones because they are the ‘now.’ That is the reality.
