A 2017 experiment at the University of Arkansas at Monticello examined how phones affected undergraduates’ understanding and retention of information in a large lecture class.11 The researchers 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 had their phones with them. It didn’t matter whether the students who had their phones used them or not: All of them scored equally poorly. A 2016 survey of nearly a hundred high schools in Britain found that when schools ban smartphones, students’
...more
