Merely Eliminating Distractions Does Not Solve Our Engagement Problem

I have to be honest.

For years I believed phones should not be banned in classrooms.

But, after looking at the research, and my interactions with students and my own children, I started leaning heavily in the direction of removing phones from all learning environments.

I’m not one to change my beliefs lightly, but I’m also not going to hold onto a belief when research and reality are showing me, I’m wrong.

That is where the initial research for my upcoming book, Meaningful and Relevant, started: From a place of a frustrated Dad, teacher, and school leader wondering how we can possibly engage learners in such an era of distraction.

What I found in the research and studies over the last five years has surprised me.

Did the places that banned mobile devices see massive gains in engagement and achievement? Not as expected.

Did the schools that focused solely on behavior and culture jump ahead of their peers? Hard to tell in most cases.

Did the students magically demonstrate high attention and commitment to their learning when distractions were eliminated? Unfortunately, no.

Time and time again the stories, studies, and examples coming out of learning organizations around the world brought me to a realization, and one that the entire book is built upon:

Merely “eliminating” distractions will not solve our engagement problem.

Imagine you are a middle school or high school student. You have six or more class periods in a school day.

You are trying to keep up with the demands of homework, in-class activities, studying, sports or extracurricular activities, and a social life.

On top of all that, you live in a world of constant, instant, communication and information.

Your laptop is filled with reminders for school, assignments, emails, and your calendar.

Your phone is a never-ending connection to the good and bad of your social life. Drawing you closer to friends and family, but removing any barriers of space and time that you need to decompress.

Remember when we used to say “BRB”? There is no “be right back” in today’s world of continuous partial attention.

Over 10 years ago, in a world that was not as connected or distracted as we are now, Linda Stone referenced that the issue is not with CPA, but instead when that feeling of CPA happens on an ongoing continuous pattern day in and day out.

Continuous partial attention is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any-place behavior that creates an artificial sense of crisis. We are always in high alert.  We are demanding multiple cognitively complex actions from ourselves.  We are reaching to keep a top priority in focus, while, at the same time, scanning the periphery to see if we are missing other opportunities.

Over the last twenty years, we have become expert at continuous partial attention and we have pushed ourselves to an extreme that I call, continuous continuous partial attention.

The “shadow side” of cpa is over-stimulation and lack of fulfillment. The latest, greatest powerful technologies are now contributing to our feeling increasingly powerless. Researchers are beginning to tell us that we may actually be doing tasks more slowly and poorly.

And that’s not all. We have more attention-related and stress-related diseases than ever before. Continuous continuous partial attention and the fight or flight response associated with it, can set off a cascade of stress hormones, starting with norepinephrin and its companion, cortisol.

When CPA is non-stop and ongoing, we head down a path of serious over-stimulation.

This impacts us as learners, but more importantly as human beings.

I think it would be easy to say, “Well, then let’s just get rid of the phones! Problem solved.”

I wish it was that easy.

Are teachers going to get rid of their phones? Are we going to remove all devices from the learning environments and act like that will help prepare kids for a world where information will always be at their fingertips?

Are we going to remove ALL devices and still focus on compliance-based programs and textbooks where lectures, notes, and tests are the norm (even when we know that doesn’t necessarily lead to retention or transfer of learning)?

Even more importantly, as Designed to Fail author and educator Ira David Socol shares:

Advocating bans on mobile phones dismisses all of the wonderful ways our neurodivergent and disabled learners are using them for real learning.

That’s right. How could we forget how much these devices are helping learning come to life in our schools.

In some contexts, I’m sure it may help. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out in 2016, “We all understand the joys of our always-wired world—the connections, the validations, the laughs … the info. … But we are only beginning to get our minds around the costs.”

But, as a recent study shares from the BBC: Phone bans in schools don't help grades or health.

Banning phones in schools is not linked to pupils getting higher grades or having better mental wellbeing, the first study of its kind suggests.

Students' sleep, classroom behaviour, exercise or how long they spend on their phones overall also seems to be no different for schools with phone bans and those without, the academics found.

However, they did find that spending longer on smartphones and social media in general was linked with worse results for all of those measures.

The first study in the world to look at school phone rules alongside measures of pupil health and education feeds into a fierce debate that has played out in homes and schools in recent years.

The paper says schools restricting smartphone use did not seem to be seeing their intended improvements on health, wellbeing and focus in lessons.

I love how nuanced this study is because that is exactly how our conversations should be around using devices for learning and limiting them with the purpose to help our students.

Hidden in all of the discussion, is a point worth talking about: Are we focusing on compliance or engagement in our schools? And, in a world that allows our learners to learn anything at any time, how effective is compliance anymore?

In my next article I’ll share more examples of schools that are focusing on engagement instead of compliance, and how the outcomes are changing for all learners.