Students have grown increasingly reliant on technology to keep them connected with the world around them, and the development of smartphones has enabled them to do it better than ever before.
Using data from monthly cell phone bills of more than 60,000 mobile subscribers and survey data from more than 3,000 teens, the Nielsen Company, a consumer research firm, analyzed mobile usage data among teens in the United States between April and June of last year and discovered that American teens send or receive 3,339 texts each month on average, which amounts to more than six text messages per every hour they’re awake.@@Nielsen: http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/global/en.html@@
To the dismay of some educators and fellow students, this also includes time spent in classroom lectures and discussions. In every class throughout the day, University sophomore biology major Laura Spanko unabashedly admits she checks her phone regularly during classes, despite the fact that most of them have rules that prohibit text messaging. @@Spanko: http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Laura+Spanko+@@
“I really don’t care if people text in class, because I text in class,” Spanko said. “I don’t purposefully take my phone out to text somebody in class, but if I get a text, I’ll text back. In most of my classes, instructors say that you can’t text in class, although I try to be discreet about it.”
“I get distracted because you have to read what’s going on in the text message, but then I get back into it,” Spanko said. “It’s not that big of a deal; it’s like a nice break.”
For some teachers, Spanko’s perceptions of text messaging during class are relatively common among students and represent a looming problem that has grown over time. In fact, a two-day survey conducted by textPlus, a social networking smartphone application company, found that 31.2 percent of students reported they sporadically text during class, and an estimated 13.4 percent constantly text during class, despite the fact that more than one-third of the people surveyed acknowledged it was wrong.@@http://www.textplus.com/@@
In addition, the survey found that 34 percent of students use text messaging in class and that 43.5 percent of students text with friends in the same class. Despite the high rate of students who text during class, only 17.1 percent of students reported being disciplined for it.
“I think that texting is being used more and more now as a really easy form of communication and keeping in touch for short and quick conversations,” said Margaret Chen, a textPlus spokesperson. “I think that they may not be having full conversations, but can be saying things like, ‘Do you want to meet after class?’ and then check their phone again before the period is over.”
Chuck Martin, a marketing lecturer at the University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore School of Business and Economics, had one of his classes conduct their own market research survey in which half of the 1,043 students surveyed felt guilty about texting during class when it was not allowed. Nevertheless, this did not stop people from doing it. In fact, 65 percent of the students surveyed said they sent at least one text message during a typical class. @@Martin: http://www.wsbe.unh.edu/chuck-martin@@
However, Martin said he doesn’t have any specific rules against text messaging and actually permitted students to do so, since he considered it to be a nonissue among his students — a fact strengthened by the survey, which found students are not distracted by other people texting but are usually distracted when they choose to text.
“In reality, when students text in class, they’re briefly looking at their phone to check a message or respond to a message, which may take four to five seconds at most, so it’s not that big of a distraction,” Martin said.
But, not everyone agrees with Martin’s sentiments. Lara Bovilsky, a University associate English professor, said texting in class has been increasingly getting worse over time as the act becomes desensitized through prevalence in society. @@Bovilsky: http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Lara+Bovilsky@@
“Texting can cause them to miss important things in class and therefore weaken their understanding,” Bovilsky said in an email. “The student texting is throwing some portion of his or her own — and his or her parents’ college-related — money away. In practice, however, if I am unaware of students texting, and if they are being reasonably subtle and not causing a disruption — e.g. by passing around a phone and laughing during lecture — I don’t mind if they text. Any loss to their education and their course grade is up to them.”
In her own classroom, Bovilsky said she only intervenes when the act of texting becomes “overt and visibly distracting to other students or actively distracting to me.” Bovilsky said she wants to take a more hands-off approach because she recognizes that spending time to address an offense during a class can also be a distraction for students. In addition, Bovilsky noted a “generation gap” seems to exist between students and teachers who hold seemingly different perceptions about the ethical behavior behind text messaging.
“Students often don’t realize, for instance, that for too many of their teachers, texting seems actively rude,” Bovilsky explained. “A student who is visibly texting can put himself or herself at a disadvantage in a class, since many professors assume texting means that the student feels: ‘I don’t have to behave in a respectful manner,’ or ‘I don’t care about my education.’ Since teachers care very much about our students’ education and since in the classroom we are working just for students, that perceived lack of respect can seem extreme. I try to remain mindful that students do not always intend to send these signals.”
However, some professors have taken on a more proactive stance. In University geology professor Qusheng Jin’s class, there is a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior. Jin said that at the beginning of each lecture he gives students 30 seconds to put away their cell phones and computers. If students proceed to use their phone or computer during class, Jin immediately tells them to leave class. @@Jin: http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Qusheng+Jin@@
“If texting still occurs during the lecture, there is no excuse for the students to stay in the classroom but leaving,” Jin said. @@Does this quote make sense?@@@@Maybe he means, ‘there is no other option…”?@@