Fostering learning in a world of technological distractions

Teaching today seems like it has more challenges than ever before. One factor that seems to rise above many others is the extent to which our students are distracted. I now see many thumbs swiping in class as students go from one reel or TikTok to the other. Students are not paying attention, and the divided attention will have negative consequences for their learning. Keeping abreast of the data to support this can be useful and may nicely inform your classroom policies.

We have known for some time that social media is addictive and can have negative consequences for mental health (Twenge, 2023). While scrolling first seemed to be correlated with an increase in loneliness and depression, evidence is slowly accumulating to show that social media use may be a causal factor in many ills experienced by students today. In fact, there are now calls to ban phones in classrooms and make sure that our children move from a phone-based childhood back to a play-based childhood (Haidt, 2024). The problem is not limited to the United States, and in fact seems to be seen all over the globe. Most of the problem seems to have started in 2007, when the iPhone and smartphones hit the market and today, with a phone in near every hand, more eyes seem to be glued to screens than before. Phones and laptops are now ubiquitous in college classrooms and in many educational settings in general. Technology can solve some pedagogical challenges, but also create others.

The norms for the type of technology that is perceived to be acceptable and the use of technology have both changed dramatically. Most of our students now use their phones to learn (Moore, 2023). Unfortunately, this also puts a range of potential distractions at their fingertips. Smart phones can facilitate learning, but can also keep students from paying attention or practicing key behaviors such as note taking.

There are two separate issues when it comes to note taking. Most students can take notes faster by typing and capturing verbatim what you say or put up on slides. Although handwriting notes is often slower, this approach involves deeper processing and makes learning more likely (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014), although not reliably so (Urry et al. 2021). Regardless of the modality students use to take notes, better learning happens when the student thinks about the material more deeply, something more likely to happen if they are not distracted. In a wonderful summary of some key issues, Oppenheimer (2019) suggests: Whether to use traditional paper-and-pen methods or digital means depends on your desired educational goals. Laptops or phones allow students to go online for additional class related resources, and make notes easier to search, read, index, sort, and correct. Of course, devices also provide access to non-academic material.

How students read also varies if technology is used. Earlier studies suggest an advantage of paper over digital reading (Delgado et al., 2018) countered by more recent work. For example, a meta-analysis of 32 studies (N = 2239) did not reveal a significant impact of the reading medium (screen versus paper) on the reading comprehension of a narrative text (Schwabe et al., 2022). Furthermore, there was no significant difference in learning outcomes between reading on paper and reading digitally (Sage et al., 2023). In one exception, students’ learning experience with print was superior, with the laptop a close second (Sage et al., 2020).

Technology is just downright distracting (see Gurung, 2024 for a review). Those who text during lecture do worse on quizzes and even students making the choice not to distract themselves by web surfing or texting can still suffer. There is attention contagion, where students do worse if the person next to them was distracted versus paying attention. My favorite study to share with students involves the effects of the mere presence of a phone. Three groups of students took a quiz. One group kept their phones on the table, one group had their phones in their backpacks next to them, and a third group had their phones outside the room. In all three cases the phones were switched off. Students with their phones next to them, either on the table or in bags, did worse and were more likely to report thinking about whether they had been messaged (Ward et al., 2017).

The data is strong. Phones and technology in class can hurt learning and most students know this. Bans are too draconian. Furthermore, some students rely on their phones for health messages or as parents and caregivers. While a Luddite lifestyle precludes access to the affordances of technology, we still need to address the detrimental effects of distraction. We should all be addressing technology use in our classrooms.