The Effect of Mobile on Teenagers

Mobile and communication devices have played a vital role in connecting individuals with family and friends. More importantly, it has allowed parents to ensure that their children are safe when they are away from home.

In today's world, mobile phones are mainly used for internet connectivity than making calls. The ability to easily access information for further understanding and research is considered as one of the strongest advantages of in-class usage of mobile phones. The use of mobile phones in academics will enable students to collaborate assignments and tasks, providing them with a broader prospect of the topic in discussion. Increasing number of students are now using text based communication tools to interact with teacher's and student's for information on subject or academic matter. This allows students to have a direct one-to-one communication with instructors or peer's, enabling them to get instant feedback or answers on their doubts and queries.  Students also use online learning tools such as YouTube or apps to enhance their learning experience. This has proved to be effective in improving students academic results.

Despite the benefits associated with the use of mobile phones, they are many disadvantages especially on students. Distractions among students caused by mobile phones is a major concern for parents and teachers. It has been observed that students with access to a mobile phone would be easily distracted by notifications. Gaining notifications such as likes or texts give a sense of reward in the minds of the children. This encourages them to post more content on social media. However, it also increases the number of times they check their phones for notification. Once developed into a habit, this can negatively impact students, as distractions from notifications will leave them with little time to re-gain focus on academics. Ultimately, the student's concentration level will be adversely affected, thus having a negative impact in the child's academic performances.

The role of schools and parents, is to ensure that there is a good balance and restriction on the child's usage of mobile phones. Parents should ensure that the child gets to use their phone's only after they finish their studies. Academic research or further learning tools must not be used as an excuse to allow the child to use their phones during study time. Doing so, may tempt the student to check their social network accounts for notifications reducing the effective time they spend on actual learning. The student must be allowed to use mobile learning tools during the last half hour of home studies. As an alternate, parents can also switch off home Wi-Fi during the allotted study hours. 

Global Indian International school in Abu Dhabi, ensures that students get enough opportunities for collaborative and online learning through resources within the school. This eliminates the need to bring phones to school, thus reducing the possibility of any distraction caused by mobile phones. Teacher's in the school are regularly trained on best student-mobile and internet practices ensuring that students and parents are well versed with balancing the use of mobile phones and academics.