Total concentration. The students stares down at their tests. Dead calm. Silence permeates every corner of the room as students focus intently on the question before them. Without warning, the blare of a phone ring pierces the room. Thirty pairs of vexed eyes and unsettled minds are forced to focus on the phone hotel and not their tests. The phone sings merrily on, unaware of the hateful glares cast in its direction.
The mandatory school-wide phone “hotels” cause more disruption than they prevent. When a phone goes off, turning it off is no longer as simple as pulling it out of your pocket and switching the ringer off. Instead, an entire scene ensues, with the teacher having to check every phone or ask a student to check them. This ordeal can take minutes as opposed to the mere seconds it would take a person to silence a phone in their pocket.
Because of this, the entire class is negatively affected. The whole class is distracted by the ringer, diverting their attention away from their work. Their attention shattered, the entire class now struggles to comprehend material and refocus their attention.
Even if the phone is quickly silenced, there is still a major negative effect on quality of work. According to research from Michigan State University and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the average number of errors a person will make doubles after hearing a cell phone ring just two seconds long. The number of errors tripled when the ring was three seconds long, proving that the phone needs to be silenced as quickly as possible.
If this happened infrequently, it would be easy to ignore. However, phones cry out from their hotel on a day to day basis. In almost every class, students’ eyes and ears are pried from their work and to a device.
The problem created by the phone hotels feels awfully similar to the problem they are attempting to prevent. The administration obviously wants students to pay more attention in class, which is entirely understandable and respectable. However, the implementation of phone holders falls flat despite its good intentions.
The administration made this policy not because every single student was on their phone during their classes, but rather due to a small number of students who constantly use their phone. Because of their painfully obvious drawbacks, the phone holders detract from everyone’s learning instead of only affecting those choosing to use their phone during class. In practice, this system is unfair to students doing their best to focus during class.
The counterargument would be for students to silence their phones everyday before putting them in the hotels. While I do not disagree with this solution, it is unrealistic. Theoretically, if every student silenced their phone every class, the phone holders would function perfectly. However, these past two months of school have already proven that this will not happen.
The solution is simple: stop mandating phone holders. Of course, teachers should still be allowed to use them if they want. However, these teachers should make an effort to remind students to silence their phones prior to checking them into their hotel.
