Should Mobile Phones and Social Media Services such as Face Book be Banned in Classrooms - Essay Example

Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2013 Should Mobile Phones and Social Media services such as Face book be banned in classrooms? Introduction Technology advancement has tremendously affected all spheres of life including social, political and economic lives of individuals, organizations and many others. Such technological advancement includes the wide range of innovation in mobile telephony which has been intensified by innovation of 3G and 4G networks (Swan et al, 2005, p 102). Through the technology, model of mobile phones has become very dynamic and products equally become cheap. In addition to advancement in mobile telephony technology, there has been advancement in social media innovation hence intensifying communication and turning the world into a global village. Such social media innovations include face book, twitter, Google +, yahoo and many others. All these innovations while coupled together have greatly affected the world both negatively and positively. The sphere of communication for instance has been intensified to a greater extent making the world a global village. Internet enabled phone mostly labeled smart phones have made communication to be much better hence improving human relationships. Additionally, through internet enabled mobile phone social media products such as face book and twitter has been made available to many people across the world as smart phones are cheap and readily available to almost every individual including students. While these technological innovations have been associated with a lot of benefit, they have negatively affected some important activities such as teaching in schools. In this regards, the intention of this research is verify whether mobile phones and social media services such as face book should be banned in classrooms given their effect on education. In many schools especially in high social economic status schools almost every student is able to access a phone and a bigger percentage of them access smart phones according to a survey done by Pew Research center (2013, p 2). The research additionally found that incorporation of digital technology especially mobile phones has a great benefit to students as they are exposed to more information on the subject matter and also enriching learning environment through increasing students experience. Equally, mobile phones and social media have profound benefit on student as it is a medium for online research hence improving the student knowledge and experience (Swan et al, 2005, p 102). Consequently, the productivity of the students highly increases and at the same time their self efficacy is accelerated hence laying the basis for proper and innovative learning. Social media services such as face books have equally boosted the relationship of students across the world. Students’ relationships have intensified giving them chance to learn from each other and to discuss their plight as students. Moreover, social media has become a source of motivation for students particularly from public figures for instance state presidents, innovators, politicians, educationist and many others as they have a tendency of being frequent in social media. According to Albert Bandura social learning theory such students learn from the public figures vicariously acting as their source of motivation in academic activities (Swan et al, 2005, p 102). In addition, social media has a profound impact on facilitating creativity and criticality skills of an individual student. This is because the services acts as sources of information either related to academics or on basic life skills which then is acted upon by analyzing evaluating it. As such, the amassed information acts as a basis of criticality and creativity hence innovations that make life to be more worth and enjoyable. This is justified by the cognitive theories of learning which says which advocate for enriching the learning environment which is the basis of innovation since the student mind is challenged (Pew Research center, 2013, p 2). Phone and social media enriches the learning environment and consequently, the student is able to cultivate and boost his or her problem solving skills hence facilitating proper relationships with fellow students as well as teachers. Their social life is additionally improved since there are able to relate with other human beings with mutual respect hence psychological peace (Pew Research center, 2013, p 2). While social media and mobile phones have been found to improve learning in the classroom, they have negatively affected teaching and learning to a great degree. The first and most important in a teaching and learning phenomenon is distraction from learning (Nauert 2013, p 4). Teaching and learning requires conducive environment free from any form of distraction either from classroom or from the outside environment. Indeed, quality learning is equated to the kind of environment the teacher or the student introduces in the classroom environment. Phones and social media distract students from concentrating on the lectures as they tempt students to progressively post status updates and texting to chatting (Duncan et al, 2012 p 6). Further, cell phone ring tones and sound have received a lot of condemnation as they equally distract acquisition of knowledge from the teacher. This particularly happens when the phones goes off and on during lecture session thus deterring acquisition of knowledge. In fact, a new research by (Nauert 2013, p 2) found that the widespread use of media compromises academic performance among college students. The research equally blamed texting, music as well as internet and social networking which have become popular in the recent years to be the main challenges in classrooms particularly teaching sessions. The research discovered that media networking was highly associated with lower grade points average (GPA) recorded for some of the students (Nauert 2013, p 2). Apart from distraction existence of cell phones in a class room signifies affluence and high social economic status of the families those particular students come from (Duncan et al, 2012 p 6). In most cases classroom contain a blend of students from both low and high social economic statuses. Very few students from low social economic status families can afford cell phones and if they afford it is likely that the phone is not a smart phone. As such, students from low social economic status may suffer low esteem and therefore low self efficacy due to lack of a phone. This may highly deter learning in such a student and he or she may even suffer from psychological distress which is the genesis of depression. This is more evident in classrooms where students always have a tendency of forming groups on the basis of family social economic status. In this regard, students with such psychological conditions may be impossible to most of the students and they may even quit school given their psychological problems (Duncan et al, 2012 p 6). Moreover, social media service and phones which are commonly used by student to search for information have made student to over rely on the phone (Nauert 2013, p 2). Most of them especially when they are given research questions and assignment equate research to using Google+. Most of them use phone networking at the expense of library resources hence reduced reading and research skills hence poor academic performance. Additionally many examination irregularities using phones have been observed across the world. Many students fail to adequately learn in class rooms while the teacher is teaching due to phone and social network services cited earlier and later during examination periods they turn to cheating so as to achieve psychological dissonance that despite not concentrating in class they can still pass by cheating with a phone. In addition, to cheating with a cell phone through using Google and wikis phones are can be further used to smuggle examination materials and contents in the examination rooms. They do that by hiding phones in the cloths especially waist bands, and many other places where they can also use them to text to ask for answers from other students during examinations. This is a great challenge of awarding various academic certificates as unqualified graduates can get away with good certificates. Consequently, this is highly manifested in the job markets where employer complains of employee’s incompetence and unproductively (Nauert 2013, p 2) While mobile phones and social media services face book, twitter and many others make have negative effect on students’ academic performance, health of the students highly affected (Nauert 2013, p 2). In most cases students go for long hour while using social networks such as face book and twitter. Most of them adopt sedentary life style without the knowing and as such they start developing cases of obesity and too much cholesterol. Consequently health problems such as cardiovascular disorders including hypertension heart attack and several others may a rise further affecting academics performance of students. Similarly, student who are frequent users of phones in class risk health problems which are usually associated by the radiations given off by cell phones. Equally research has strongly associated cell phone usage with Alzheimer, male infertility among other complications (Nauert 2013, p 2). Conclusion In this regard, phones and social media services seems to be having more negative impact on the education system in classroom but at the same time they impact positively on students. So as to save all the students in class both from low and high social economic status families the instructor should ensure that his or her policies are well understood by the students such that the phones are not distracters of teaching and learning. Additionally, phones should be banned from classrooms so as not to disadvantage some student in the expense of mistaken students. Regulations should be enforced in class such that phones and social network services should be legitimized to be used in specific places in schools and times so that negativity that comes with it can be reduced and at the same time students learning environment can be enriched by the benefits of social media and mobile phones. Finally, students should be advised accordingly on the effects of phones and social media. More over they should take part debates concerning the effects of phones and be encouraged to use social media and phones responsibly. References Pew Research center, 2013, How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms. Retrieved on 3nd November 2013 from Nauert R, 2013, Social Media, Facebook & Twitter Use May Harm Grades of College Freshman. Psych Central. Retrieved on November 4, 2013, from Duncan, D & et al, 2012, Digital devices, distraction, and student Performance: does in-class cell phone use reduce learning? Astronomy Education Review. Vol. 11,issue 1, Swan, K. & et al, 2005, Uses and Effects of Mobile Computing Devices in K-8 Classrooms. Journal of Research on Technology Education. Vol. 38 issue 1, 99-112. Read More