The student news site of St. Teresa's Academy

DartNewsOnline

Breaking News
The student news site of St. Teresa's Academy

DartNewsOnline

The student news site of St. Teresa's Academy

DartNewsOnline

Dart News

Technology decreasing students’ attention spans

Technology decreasing students attention spans
by Gabi Dorrell

Freshman student Gwen Robertson sits down to do math and Spanish homework. She replies to Snapchats, checks Instagram, and texts her friend about the upcoming weekend.

“My parents sometimes get frustrated with me because they see me using my phone when I’m supposed to be doing my homework and they know how distracting it can be.”

According to commonsensemedia.com, technology has made many middle and high school students think in short bites. It’s harder for teens in this generation to pay attention to something for more than 10 minutes at a time. Media is delivered quickly and efficiently, making teens impatient when it comes to school and at-home responsibilities. Researchers say that technology impacts teen more than anyone else. Teens’ developing brains become used to switching tasks faster and more often, therefore shortening their attention spans, according to NY Times.

Catherine Brown

“It’s affected my attention span even when I’m not even doing homework,” freshman Catherine Brown said. “Like if I see an article or something that looks like it would take more than about 2 minutes to read, I won’t read it. I want things fast and I definitely think that a big part of that is because of technology.”

According to an internetworldstats.com study, the rise in internet users has jumped from 361 million users to 2.405 billion users in just 10 years. Netbooks were added to STA in the 2010-2011 school year to connect students through technology and lessen the amount of textbooks for students to lug around in their backpacks. Though there are many advantages, netbooks can also play a role in the distraction, especially in class.

“Blocking websites helps, but there are so many out there that there’s no way [STA] can block every distracting [website],” Brown said. “[Netbooks] definitely make it a lot easier to get distracted in classes…I always find myself playing games on my netbook during a discussion.

Children and teens now use technology in the classroom, which affects the way they learn and study. There are online dictionaries, thesauruses, flashcards, and summaries of books, chapter by chapter. This can lead to laziness with students, and letting them take the easy way out, according to freshman Mary Kate Concannon.

“If I’m in a hurry to finish an assignment, I’ll use SparkNotes and other things like that, which really doesn’t help me in the long run because there are sometimes details that are left out…It’s a short term fix,” Concannon said.

Robertson picks up her phone and plugs in her earbuds. Thirty minutes into doing work, she’s back on her phone texting her friends and checking social media sites.

“The lure of technology is crazy… It’s just…another excuse to put something off.” Robertson said.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

Please review the Dart's editorial policy before commenting. Please use your first and last name; anonymous comments will not be published.
All DartNewsOnline Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *