Smartphones Effect on Teenagers

Josh Frint Lawrence ENG 1113 26 September 2012 Essay #1 Smartphones Impact on Todays students Today, smartphones are in the hands of almost every student. It has become so common that young children are starting to ask their parents for one. Although nobody can deny the ability to find and use information fast on a smartphone, many people feel students should not have one. These smartphones are effecting verbal communication, writing skills, as well as increasing laziness in our students. Verbal communication is increasingly becoming a problem in today’s society and it is because of smartphones.
Our generation is known as the “texting generation”. These days, students talk to their friends using text messages or calling. This takes away our ability to talk to someone face to face. It affects college graduates not being confident enough to present themselves properly in an interview with a future employer. Texting interaction leaves out basic skills like, clear speaking, body language, eye contact with the person to whom they are speaking too, and the ability to listen and stay focused on what the person is saying.
More and more these days students go to their phones or computers when needing to write an essay. Students search Google and various other search engines to help find the most up to date information, although the information is handy and very tempting, it is creating pure laziness in todays society. These smartphones contain encyclopedias, dictionaries and as we all know, the internet. There is no exerted effort into collecting this information, students are too lazy to read a book and quite frankly, some just don’t have time.

Also, students are being distracted by cellphones. It is causing lack of focus and discipline. Often times students will sit down to study and all of the sudden hear their phone go off, and they’ll get self-indulged into the conversation and no longer continue to study. Students are becoming unable to concentrate on the task at hand would rather be using their phones to be texting friends, updating their Facebook statuses or even Re-Tweeting what their best friend ate for dinner.
Writing skills are on the free fall, and it is all because of our students’ use of smartphones. Think about it, back in the day, society would take pride in being able to read and write, it was a hobby and many people did it for fun. Today, writing is frowned upon by any student. Our writing skills have vanished due to our lack of proper English usage. Students send text messages that would even confuse Shakespeare like “OMG” or “LOL”. Essays are now a problem for students because they lack the ability to think in depth.
Through text messages we get straight to the point and do not have the meaningful, in depth conversation that people have face to face. Smartphones are here, and aren’t going anywhere. In fact, the technology will likely become more advanced and more easily accessible to our students, which is fine, as long as those advancements aren’t being abused by our students. Parents and schools play a vital role in fixing this problem, parents must show children the appropriate use of smartphones, and schools must continue to create ways to move around the path of technology.