Buzzzzzzzzzz! Another cellphone is going off in the middle of class, causing her to blush and discreetly check her new text message. A virtual conversation is buzzing back and forth inside one classroom and into the classroom across the hall, having a discussion about the party that night or the lipstick color chosen at the mall. In another classroom, a student posts the answers to the English exams on her profile page, allowing all of her buddies to read and use for their time of the exam. There are multiple examples of students using their cell phones during class time to communicate their thoughts, images of their environment or dangerous crimes. In addition, the percentage of students with cellphones now soars to about 80% (Ban). This highly increases the chance for students to have a cell phones on them during school. Cell phones can also be harmful to students during class, taking them into another world of technology, separated from the classroom, and turning them down a road of decisions they never intended on doing. Overall, cell phones alter classroom learning in a negative way, and should be banned from use in the classroom at all schools.
One reason that cell phones should be banned from classrooms is because students who use them fall into a daze of distracted learning. Classes are taught by teachers, whose goal is to give the student an educational experience, learning things they will need to apply to their later life. However, students on their cellphones are distracted from their learning and never use the lessons taught. Over 2,000 cellphone disturbances were reported in New York City in the past school year (Backstory). This means that over 2,000 people had issues with cellphones interrupting classroom discussion, and the phones created tensions in the classroom. Cell phones distract both the teacher and the student from living the full experience of learning and teaching well. Many students have insight of under-the-desk text messaging occurring during everyday class (Birnbaum). This shows that more and more students are otherwise busy with the use of their cell phones and pay less attention to class. Cell phones overall decrease the chances of having a good learning experience in the classroom, and distract them from their learning.
In addition to cell phones being distracting, cell phones also degrade the confidence of students in the classroom. Many cell phones these days have cameras which students use against their peers by taking embarrassing photos of them unsuspectingly. Even more so, the trend could deter class participation by students "who wouldn't want to speak up for fear of being mocked, if they felt their answers would be put up on the Internet," Mr. Strom, the general counsel for the American Federation of Teachers says. "The whole environment would be affected in a very significant way." (de Vise). Many students would be intimidated in their classroom environment from not knowing where cell phones might be...
