Mobile Phones Should Be Banned In the University and College Classrooms

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Mobile Phones Should Be Banned In the University and College Classrooms
Mobile phones are the one of the most common communication devices used by majority of people today. The use of these devices has increased over the years has increased significantly over the years. Mobile phones have invaded almost every place in today’s world and it is common to find people using them in inappropriate places. The use of mobile phones in university classrooms is today a common phenomenon .The penetration of mobile phones in the United States is around 90% in all the United States colleges and universities and 75% in high schools (Craft, 2007). Many high schools have rules that ban or govern the use of mobile phones in class but there are no strict rules that regulate the use of mobile phones in college and university classrooms. Cell phones use in classrooms is associated with distraction that affects the quality of learning (Watulak, 2010) .This paper explores the effect of mobile phone use in classroom settings on the learning experience. It also explores, and recommends the ban on the usage of cell phones in the classroom.
The learning process requires concentration. The learning process requires little distractions in order for the lecturer to communicate effectively and deliver course instructions and for the students to listen effectively. Cell phones use in the classroom cause distraction as students send messages and chat on social networks through mobile while lecture are going on. Cell phones do not cause disruption on just the student using the phone but they also disrupt learning to other students as well. For example, students sending messages and chatting over their phone might catch the attention of other students and make their thoughts to wander out of the classroom. This can make students to shut from the learning process which makes students miss on some of the classroom instruction. The sound of cell phone ring Tones can cause a distraction in the learning process as it distracts every student in the classroom. Constant conservation through messaging and chat on social networks makes students minds to focus only on the conversation and not on the content delivered in class (Mcmormick, 2010).
Mobile phones are used in humiliating other students and teachers as well for example phones are used to film and post pictures on the internet invading others students privacy. In this way, the use of mobile phones in the classroom can be used for ill purposes and this may hinder the learning of other students. Students with phones in the classroom show off their mobile phones to other students making students to develop interest in features of the cell phones distracting students from the classroom. There is no way hat the tutors can confiscate mobile phones since this is a violation of the privacy rights of students. Sometimes the tutors are left with the option of just telling the students to shut off their phones (Schwab, 2010)
. According to Wright (2005), there is a culture that has developed in the use of mobile phones in school among students that makes them consider it permissible to use cell phones in the classroom for example around 4 % of students in MIT view using phones in the classroom as just normal . 41% of students in MIT have no problem sending and exchanging text messages in class and 33 percent consider it normal to play mobile phone games in the classroom. Cell phones also present another problem to school authorities in enhancing cheating. There are ways that students use mobile phones to cheat. Examples are finding illegally the answers to questions through saving notes to a phones memory and accessing the answers from the internet. Students also take pictures of examinations and forward to their friends through sending messages and through chat sessions. Allowing cell ph...