College of Communication senior Sana Ali said she usually pays attention in class, but she will text when she has the opportunity.
“I have a lot of three hour classes,” she said. “If I focus for the first two hours, I feel like it’s okay to send a text. It’s a reward system for paying attention and staying on task.”
A recent study, which will appear in the July 2012 issue of the National Communication Association’s journal “Communication Education” found students who text more in class were less attentive and demonstrated lower grades.
Boston University psychology Professor David Somers said the results of the study were not surprising.
“It seems pretty obvious to me that students who are distracted in class, by texting or anything else, will get less out of lectures,” Somers said in an email interview. “Multitasking typically leads to impairment of performance of both tasks, unless one of the tasks is very automated.”
Students who text in class often perceived themselves as having learned less, according to the study, which surveyed 190 University of Pittsburgh-Bradford students.
Those who reported higher levels of self-regulation graded themselves better and reported learning more.
Somers said he is more interested in why students cannot restrain themselves from texting.
“I believe that texting, for many people, is something of an addiction,” he said. “Each text message that you receive is a reward. To get that reward you need to send a text message.”
Somers said those who text frequently have an expectation of regular “rewards,” and they will unconsciously initiate text conversations to get that reward, which disrupts their focus.
College of Arts and Sciences junior Denise Wong said she rarely texts in class and is not very attached to her phone.
However, Wong said she notices a correlation between the characteristics of a class and how frequently people text in it.
“A lot of times, in my classes which are more interesting, I see less people texting than in others,” Wong said. “It’s also harder if you’re in a smaller class or in harder classes.”
Mounica Donepudi, a CAS junior, said she does not usually text during class.
“I don’t get service in a lot of my classrooms,” she said. “Even if I did, I still probably wouldn’t text during class.”
However, Donepudi said professors do not often feel the need to force their students to pay attention.
“In college, you’re expected to do what’s necessary to learn,” she said. “Professors don’t monitor you like they did in high school.”
School of Management freshman Wesley Kang said he texts during class despite knowing he should not.
“I think it’s not okay to text in class, but I do it anyways,” he said. “It’s rude. “
Kang said he often texts more in large classes that he finds boring.
“I get bored, and if you’re in a large lecture hall, it’s impossible for the teacher to know,” he said. “But if you’re in a discussion where everyone is expected to participate, it’s rude to text.”
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