Influence of mobile phone on school performance by distracting attention and impairing memory

Humanity Department, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

With the prevalence of mobile phone, people’s lives have become more convenient in both social contact and entertainment. However, there is a raising concern about its effect on school performance. This article is going to explain the influence of mobile phone on school performance from two perspectives, distracting attention and impairing memory, by describing and evaluating previous studies. The results indicate that phone usage during class, especially texting and emailing, will lower the accuracy and amount of knowledge remembered by distracting attention and impairing working memory and encoding stage of long-term memory. The conclusion is that school performance and learning outcomes are negatively affected by mobile phone. Some suggestions are given based on the findings of these studies to reduce the impairment of school performance caused by mobile phone, such as implementing a regulation in college of not allowing to use smartphone during class and practicing reducing the urge to use or think about it.