Student Texting

In modern times it is very typical to see new technology being utilized as a tool in university classrooms. Whether it’s a laptop used to follow along with lecture slides and take notes, or a phone to quickly fact check and connect with others in the class, during lectures, there is a multitude of technological devices at students’ disposal. Despite the benefits of convenience and easy access to resources, Dietz and Henrich (2014) have demonstrated that technology, specifically phones for texting, have detrimental effects on students’ final grade point average. Some professors have taken action against it forcing students to keep their phones or other devices off or stowed away during the lecture period . However, this may not be the most effective …show more content…
Texting, or using another technology in class is a prominent example of how students believe that they can maintain full focus on both the incoming lecture information and conversations with their friends without compromising their retention of either activity. However according to Gupta and Irwin (2014) multitasking is an unsatisfactory form of attention because while concentrating slightly more on one item, information from the other item may go unnoticed. Unfortunately for students, in any setting where learning takes place, proper attention is necessary for the indoctrination of information into areas of the brain focused on long-term memory retention (Frith, Frackowiak, Dolan, Fletcher, Grasby, & Shallice, 1994). When observed during an attention divide between two stimuli people presented with less activity in their lower left frontal lobe which is normally responsible for receiving and translating linguistic information in the brain (Frith et al., 1994). Therefore, the dividing of attention between lecture material and frequent text conversations limits the possibility that important information will be stored accurately and recollected at a later