Essay

¿Should students use their cell phones in the classroom? 

In Chile, and in the world in general, students use their cell phones while they are in classes. This phenomenon can be caused by the increase of the use of social networks or the use of internet or other types of resources for academic purposes. In this essay, we will review the arguments sorrounding this issue, although this essay will argue why it is better not to use the cell phone in classes. 

Use the cell phone in class has some advantages if the student occupies it responsibly. First, cell phone has many applications to help solve doubts about the class, if the student does not understand a point of the subject. Second, using phones today helps in the skills that a person should have in the current 21st century, for example, to work with technology in the future. Finally, the cell phone would help to takes notes in class more quickly, because in the classroom many teachers talk a lot, and students can not write in their notebook all the information that the teacher says, so the cell phone would help with this. 

In the other hand, there are many reasons to think that the use of cell phones by the students in a class is harmful to both: the student and the teacher. Firstly, the most common argument, and the one that causes the most discomfort in the teacher: the students do not pay attention to the class, this is due to the recreation that the cell phone generates. An example is social networks and online games. Secondly, the cell phone can be used for bad practices by the student in the classroom such as copying in a test or exam. If the student depends on the cell phone to do a test, it would cause that they will not study enough or have a poor understanding of the subject. Finally, there is the problem of using cell phones as a constant mode of work in the classroom. This is based on the fact that two fundamental axes are lost when students work in this way: face to face communication with others is lost, and creativity is lost too, because everything is ready and done in the world of the internet. 

With all the above, we can conclude that cell phones do help learning, but I think that its use has to be limited to recreational moments, because teachers are the ones who must teach in the classroom, not cell phones, especially when it comes to teenage students who do not use this tool with full responsibility at school. We must not encourage dependence to this technological device. This does not mean that its use in classes is prohibited, but that it must be used responsibly.