Reality Check: Teaching In The Era of Distraction
We are distracted. More than ever.
The chances you finish this article are very slim.
The chances you finish this article without getting distracted by your device are extremely small!
Kids are distracted by constant notifications for their attention.
You already know this. Because you are also distracted.
We live in an era of distraction.
Now, try teaching in this era. It is difficult.
And it looks nothing like it did when we were in school.
This is happening at all levels of education.
A national study conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln revealed that college students are increasingly distracted by digital devices in class. On average, students checked their phones and other digital devices over 11 times a day while in class. They estimated spending about 20% of their classroom time on digital devices for non-class activities, such as text messaging, emailing, web-surfing, and checking social media. This behavior led to reduced attention, missed instruction, and potentially lower grades. However, most students indicated an unwillingness to change their behavior, citing a desire to stay connected and not miss messages. The study highlighted a growing need for both students and faculty to adapt their practices to this reality.
This isn’t only universities. And it isn’t only in the United States.
In August 2018, research from the UK’s telecoms regulator, Ofcom, reported that people check their smartphones on average every 12 minutes during their waking hours, with 71% saying they never turn their phone off and 40% saying they check them within five minutes of waking. Both Facebook and Instagram announced they were developing new tools designed to limit usage in response to claims that excessive social media use can have a negative impact on mental health.
The big issue that arises during these moments of distraction is not the actual distraction itself. We’ve become fairly good at being distracted and still getting “work” or “school” done.
The real problem is CPA:
Continuous partial attention – or CPA – was a phrase coined by the ex-Apple and Microsoft consultant Linda Stone. By adopting an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behaviour, we exist in a constant state of alertness that scans the world but never really gives our full attention to anything. In the short term, we adapt well to these demands, but in the long term the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol create a physiological hyper-alert state that is always scanning for stimuli, provoking a sense of addiction temporarily assuaged by checking in.
The sense of addiction to checking in is real. This impacts:
What we can learn.
How we learn.
When we pay attention (and have commitment).
Why we pay attention (and to “who” we pay attention to).
Teachers and parents are struggling with students right now. And this is across the board in every area:
The vast majority of parents believe social media is a major distraction for students, according to a new nationwide study.
The online study, conducted in November and December, surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 parents of K-12 students. An overwhelming majority from across racial groups — African American (70%), Asian (72%), white (75%), Hispanic/Latino (70%) — agreed that social media is a distraction.
Parents of children who attend private schools (82%) were more likely to see social media as a distraction than parents of children in public schools (73%) or charter schools (73%) or those being homeschooled (67%). Interestingly, parents with children in high school (74%), middle school (73%) and elementary school (73%) were equally concerned about the issue.
School leaders are also worried. In January 2023, Seattle Public Schools sued the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, claiming they’ve created a youth mental health crisis.
The students also recognize this about themselves and their peers.
According to an Omega poll taken by 243 students, 78.4 percent reported seeing students being distracted more often in their classes. Additionally, 60.9 percent of students said they personally are feeling less able to concentrate this school year than in years past.
So what can we do? Ban it? Get rid of the devices?
A few big issues arise when we look at learning from that angle. The main issue is that suing social media companies is not going to be very helpful in the long run:
“Suing social media companies or banning cellphones in classrooms may be trendy, but is unlikely to help students,” said Vikas Mittal, a professor of marketing at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business, who conducted the 2022 Collaborative for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy (C-CUBES) K12 Parent Voice Study.
Cellphone usage and social media browsing is ingrained among school-age children, he argues. A Pew Research Center study of teens found more than 95% have access to a cellphone, 94% use the internet almost constantly or several times a day and 54% say it would be hard for them to give up social media.
The New Reality of Distraction
I have to be honest.
For years I believed that 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 book, started.
From a place of a frustrated Dad, teacher, and school leader wondering how we can possibly teach in such an era of distraction.
What I found in the research and studies over the last five years has surprised me.
The main issue with banning technology is about our connection to these devices—even when we don’t have them. Edutopia shared a 2017 study that focused on what happens when we put the cellphones away:
Students who split their attention between a learning task and texting on their cell phones or accessing Facebook, for example, perform poorly when compared to students who are not dividing their attention.
However recent research from the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research suggests that cell phones might have a negative “upstream” impact on learning, too. The authors propose that the mere presence of a cell phone, even when it is silenced and stored out of sight, might be undermining our ability to focus.
We live in a world in which most of our lives, and the lives of our kids in school, happen in person—and online.
The research time and time again brought me to a realization, and one that the entire book is built upon:
Merely “eliminating” distractions will not solve our engagement problem.
And in a world of distraction, we’ll have to double-down our focus on meaningful and relevant learning opportunities.
How we do this varies on all kinds of factors.
But it starts with rethinking our current practices, strategies, structures, and curriculum.
What’s working well? Let’s do more of it.
What’s not working well? Let’s replace it.
What could lead to more meaningful learning? Let’s try it.
What could lead to more relevant connections? Let’s do it.
In the second part of this series, we’ll take a look from a student’s perspective on how learning in an era of distraction is very different from the learning experiences we are used to, and what the research is telling us (from the last few years) is working right now in that reality.
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