Do I Have Your Attention?

A teacher is talking and the students are zoning out. Most of them are on their phones. Some might argue that as long as they are getting their work done, there’s really no problem with this scenario. You at least wouldn’t expect students to disagree with the idea. Yet, many of them do.

Senior Zhi Clark admits that easy access to social media leads to procrastination. “I feel like once I get on my phone,” she said, “I could scroll for like hours.” Sophomore Jaelyn Galasinao also regrets the effect of phone use on her studies, saying that, without the distraction, “I could have done my homework this weekend…so much earlier.” Senior Kamaile Kulukulualani thinks that phones prevent kids from “getting a full education.”

Confidence and Multi-tasking

According to a 2022 survey, 41 percent of Lahainaluna students felt that they had no problem staying “quite focused,” despite sometimes being in situations with lots of distractions. Yet, 47 percent said that sometimes they were unable to “pay attention and resist distractions,” and 30 percent admitted to “frequently” or “always” “waiting until the last minute” to complete their assignments. Something is distracting LHS students from their work, though somehow they feel good about their ability to tune out those distractions.

Danial Felisoni and Alexandra Godoi argue that students may be too confident about their ability to simultaneously scroll and stay on task as they “often overestimate their ability to multitask, which could eventually lead to academic underperformance.” As a result, when “cellphones are commonly used in class for purposes unrelated to the discipline, it is likely that students may be distracted during lectures or activities.”

Addiction

While students are generally aware of the problem, they nevertheless find it difficult to put their phones down. As Venice Gallegos describes it, “I think social media is just, like, a really easy way to get stimulated quickly, so when you’re not on it, you can kind of miss that…and have like, withdrawals.” Similarly, sophomore Ariana Lara Rodriguez stated, “When I’m in class, all I think about is watching Netflix and finishing my series or playing dress to impress.”

Jack Pope, a new English Language Arts teacher at LHS, says that grabbing a student’s attention is “a problem that teachers have been dealing with since the beginning of time.” Part of what makes this problem difficult now, says Pope, is “the accessibility of having it (the distraction) right in your pocket.” “You do get a lot of that dopamine rush from getting on your phone,” Pope said. “The attachment is something that’s very difficult for kids, for teenagers, to pull themselves away from.”

English Language Arts Teacher, Ryan Granillo, has taught at Lahainaluna for 22 years and says that he has noticed a change. “I would really say that once cell phones became prevalent in the classroom, it became really difficult for the students to manage both classroom instruction and discussions and like the desire to be on their phone,” he said. “How many TikTok videos can you go through in like, five minutes?” he added. “They might not think it’s a big deal because it’s only five minutes, but then they just, it’s that addictive quality that makes it really bad.”

He added, “It doesn’t help that there’s no real policy, school-wide policy regarding use of phones in the classroom.” Granillo states, “Everywhere you go, adults, kids, everybody in between has them (phones) out all the time, and even to the point where students do their classwork on the cell phone. And so in that regard, you have to, kind of, as a teacher, you just kind of deal with it, but it’s never going to go away. Cell phones are part of our lives.”

Annika Yucua thinks that social media can affect you somewhat but that it “is honestly not that bad of a problem.” Taking that idea further, Kimberly Hernandez says that social media is actually of help in a school environment and claims that “you can use social media for, like, many things. You make projects about posts and you just look at the post like to see, to give you an idea.”

It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem

Jack Pope notes that the problem doesn’t just lie with phones since “there are some students that are completely capable of pulling themselves away from that device and holding attention.” Zhi Clark also thinks that “It’s honestly like your own self-reflection on how well you can stay off your phone, how interested you are in what’s going on.”

On the other hand, Pope again pointed out, “grabbing a student’s attention” is a teacher’s job. “I need to make this interesting enough to where they want to pay attention to what I have to say and the content that we’re learning, rather than, you know, going straight to their device.” Jaelyn Galasinao says it another way, “If they (teachers) don’t care, I don’t care.”