In my class syllabi, I tell my freshmen students that they are not allowed to use their computers to take notes. In this series of blog posts, I will give the Top Ten reasons why.
Reason No. 1 – Better Grades
In a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology in April 2018, researchers examined how smartphones affected learning in a lecture class with 160 students at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
They found that students who didn’t bring their phones to the classroom scored a full letter-grade higher on a test of the material presented than those who brought their phones.
It didn’t matter whether the students who had their phones used them or not: All of them scored equally poorly.
A study of 91 secondary schools in the U.K., published last year in the journal Labour Economics, found that when schools ban smartphones, students’ examination scores go up substantially, with the weakest students benefiting the most.
Researchers have argued that the primary mechanism underlying the negative effects of cell phone use is through reduced attention to the classroom lecture. By reducing attention during class, information is not properly stored, thus resulting in poor retention of the material.
Evidence has shown that at least 30% of the information is lost when texting during a lecture (Froese, 2012) and as many as 89% of students shifted their attention to leisure activities during class rather than paying full attention to the lecture (Levine, 2007).
