America Trends Podcast

America Trends Podcast


EP 791 Smartphone Bans Gaining Traction in Classrooms Across the Country

September 09, 2024

‘It’s a part of me’ said one student when asked about a possible ban on smartphones in her classroom.  While we can all come up with reasons that smartphone use is a distraction and worse in the classroom, who cannot sympathize with that student’s feeling? Given the amount of time we spend on these devices, and how they have become the most utilized part of our digital array of products, we know what she means.  And, yet, empirically, the evidence of their negative impact on attention to task and resultant test result declines, school districts are increasingly coming to the realization that the presence of them is no longer manageable in the classroom. The percentage of schools limiting use, in a variety of ways, is 75 percent of the country.  It seems to be one of the few issues that finds agreement among liberals and  conservatives.  To discuss this growing trend, and making a case for it, is Professor Arnold Glass, a psychology professor at Rutgers University and someone who has researched this subject extensively.