Classes vs. Cell Phones: A Battle for Attention

An important and not always recognized part of a teacher’s job is knowing how to meet the imperative need of the class in terms of distract .

In my time as a student in the 90s, distractions came in the form of interchangeable sheets, card games like magicmusic players and youth magazines. Already in my middle school, cell phones were starting to become popular, but at that time, they were only used for calling and, at most, playing immortals. Snake .

Perhaps the biggest technological intruder I can remember was when virtual pets were all the rage, much of it inspired by the Japanese Tamagotchi, which was a digital creature that lived inside a keychain, requiring feeding, playing with, and other care throughout the day to ensure it wouldn’t get sick. Of course, this meant that back when they were all the rage, many kids were more attentive to the noise their pets made to avoid illness than to the lessons themselves.

But now, the main distraction in classrooms This is an even more powerful and present one. We are talking about the smart phones the device that gives us access to a world of entertainment including games, messages, videos, social networks and much more.

The use of smartphones in our classrooms has now become practically part of the school routine.

The study Children online of the Catholic University revealed last year that 58% of boys and girls get their first mobile phone with Internet before the age of 10. And in total, 9 out of 10 school-age children and adolescents own one of these devices. Devices that, whether we like it or not, are already part of our lives and whose use, even if it must be regulated, cannot be ignored either.

In March of this year, the Mineduc published a document entitled “Guidelines for regulating the use of mobile phones and other mobile devices in educational institutions “, in which no more than 60 minutes of exposure to screens is recommended before the age of 6, and a regulated use but also taking into account the need to use the benefits of the digital world as educational tools. And of course, there is also the need to teach responsible use of technology to behaviors that range from protecting privacy to combating harassment or combating misinformation.

However, there are currents in the world that point to the banning of these devices, at least at an early age. Without going further this week in Chile it was approved an invoice that prohibits the use of mobile phones inside schools for all students from kindergarten to the sixth year of primary education also indicating a progressive use for 7th, 8th and middle school students. This legislation is in accordance with Similar measures that have been implemented in the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana and South Carolina, with variations ranging from providing lockers for storing phones during class to banning bringing such equipment to school.

And while all the scientific evidence seems to indicate that this is indeed the right path, not only in increasing attention in classrooms, but also in reduction of harassment and mood disorders anxiety and similar Triggered by the constant use of these screens, it is worth asking whether such a measure is enough or whether there is something more fundamental. And the truth is that yes.

Because removing phones from classrooms is just a small step, but still insufficient compared to the existing deployment to capture what is today considered the most precious asset of the digital economy: our attention.

The attention economy is the name given to the moment we are currently living in and is linked to the understanding of the power of attention as a scarce commodity that everyone wants to be a part of. In the case of school, it is the teachers who take care of the toys, action figures and cell phones, but on a large scale it is the fight over which social network we watch while we take the subway, which streaming service we pay for at the end of the month or which video game we will dedicate hours of our weekend to.

If time is money, it is attention that allows companies to know how much gold they own and for this they have designed tactics to keep us glued to applications, waiting for that dose of dopamine. An example of this is the infinite scrolling implemented by applications like Tik Tok , Instagram either x and this largely explains their state of dependence.

Infinite scrolling refers to the virtually endless navigation we experience within these apps. You’re always one move, usually a swipe down, away from finding a new video, photo, or link. The fact that it’s literally a bottomless pit of content helps create a slot machine effect, where we get used to spending a lot of time half-watching things we’re not interested in in the hopes that something fun will come along that we can share.

In the United States, there is even a name for this behavior of spending hours in front of an application without realizing it: catastrophic scrolling .

Another way to maintain our attention occurs when we watch a video on YouTube , Netflix or a similar app and it’s something we’ve all experienced: we start watching a series, one chapter ends and as soon as the credits start, the next one starts playing. And without realizing it, we marathon a series or watch more than we planned. Or a game you just downloaded comes with daily missions that you have to complete to earn experience, coins or any other digital good that forces you to insert it somewhere in your routine.

More attention means more time in the app, and more time in the app means more money to pass that data to advertisers. . And so today all applications have an addictive component. And it is not only designed to affect children, although, of course, the earlier they get used to it, the greater its long-term effectiveness.

What I mean is that while the limitations on the use of devices, especially in the educational field, are correct, we cannot ignore the fact that the greatest danger when using a smartphone lies not in your hardware, but in their applications and the modes of use that they have .

Unfortunately, to regulate these behaviors, we often depend more on the countries where these requests are requested than on the regulations that may exist in Chile. Fortunately, there are projects in which you are looking eliminate practices such as infinite scrolling in apps or at least when its users are minors. Also that Registration and use of applications are approved by adults in addition to promoting education in the use of tools such as the possibility of limit daily app usage from the operating systems themselves.

In the meantime, the ideal is that, even if the physical presence of phones in a classroom can be regulated, we should in no way ignore their presence in the rest of our lives. Digital tools can help us learn and create better And pretending they don’t exist just because they’ll distract us is not the way to go either.

Because it is only by understanding and making transparent these designs that Silicon Valley has consciously manufactured to keep us in a trap, that we can have people who manage to maintain a healthy relationship with technology and who will not become adults in the future giving all their energy. attention to the algorithm.