Nowadays, almost every teenager owns a smartphone. Although these gadgets help us in many ways, there are still many disadvantages from it such as distraction from work.

Biology teacher Chris Torda said,  “Students feel the need to be on their phones rather than pay attention to what is going on in a particular lesson.”

Hall monitor James Shaw agrees with Torda and mentioned how he’s seen many kids propping their books up and being on their smartphone. Shaw said, “The time you would spend reading other material you will be on your phone looking at social media and hence it is taking time away from studies.”

Students get tempted to see what someone is posting on social media or do something on their phone. This temptation often compromises their ability to achieve success in their work.

As a matter of fact, I too experience distractions from my smartphone when I am doing my work because I feel the craving to play games on it.

After knowing that smartphones distract people from work, one might ask “How can we prevent these distractions?”

Freshman Josh Murdakhaev encourages doing something to avoid seeing the phone.  He said, “Keep your phone in your locker or face down, so you will not be tempted to look at it.”

Torda said it’s easy to avoid seeing the phone if it’s not with you.  He said,  “Keep it in your locker. If there is an emergency you will get contacted through the office.”

But now you may be wondering: ”How will life change for the good if there are no smartphone distractions?”

Torda thinks people will get more work done.  He said, “ There would be more productivity in the world as people would get their work done faster.”

He also added that it would reduce the number of accidents that occur on the road due to distracted drivers on smartphones.

Murdakhaev agrees with Torda, but doesn’t think phone distractions are that bad.  He said,  “We still need distractions from our phones, or else we would go crazy and not be able to concentrate.”

Shaw thinks communication could improve without smartphone distractions.  He said, “People will start communicating with each other and not be on their phones and that will make the world a more friendlier place to stay.”

Although I do agree with Torda and Shaw that there will be more productivity and interactions between people without distractions from smartphones, I do feel that a distraction is needed sometimes to give us a break from the work we are doing as stated by Murdakhaev.