Cellphone Management 101

It is hard to believe that in just a few weeks, we will open the 2017-2018 academic year and the return of Penn State students en masse. This year, I am going to add a lecture to the introductory class that I teach to many of those freshmen on a new topic. The title is going to be Cellphone Management.  

I believe that cellphones are the biggest deterrent to engagement, retention and success of not only students at Penn State but at high schools and colleges across the country.

With their amazing ability to connect us to what is out there, cellphones have an unparalleled ability to prevent us from connecting with what is happening right here.  They offer us an amazing ability to communicate and inform but they also open the door to many of our culture’s pitfalls and landmines.

We’ll start here. Put your phone down when you are crossing the street, even if you are in a crosswalk.

I teach in a lecture hall and phones are like the unspoken third leg of the three legged stool with me (the instructor) and the student carrying most of the weight. Most are polite enough to heed my request to “turn them off and put them away.” Others can’t quite stop their addictions. Some attempt to hide it under their desk or tuck their cellphones discreetly in their laps while others just blatantly pull out their phone and start typing away or checking their social media during class. I have a “one-warning” system and then I ask them to leave class. My promise is that I will never pull out my phone and look at it while they are talking to me and I ask them to do the same.

Sometimes, it is just about having manners.

Cellphones have been called the technological umbilical cords that are preventing college students from breaking away from home and high school and engaging in their college campuses. In an informal poll that I conducted in class last year, the record for contact with Mom or Dad in the previous day for the students enrolled in my class was 8 calls. There had been no emergency. There had been no issue. The student who had the record offered that she had called her mom to chat in between classes, to ask a question at the grocery store and to share her plans for the upcoming weekend. Note that record did not include any text messages.

I was actually impressed that many of the students in the class had spoken to someone (including Mom or Dad) on the phone, since it seems that so many don’t use theirs phones to actually talk to someone.

Sadly, as we see some of the students who are new to campus have difficulty adjusting or report feeling homesick or lonely, we often see many of those same kids remaining very engaged with friends and family through calls and texts to and from home, instead of making the effort to join in where they are.  

Texting. Snapchat. Instagram. The amazing innovations that let us offer frequent and immediate updates on our lives in words and in pictures to people over there. It also takes our time away from communicating with the people who are right here.

Texting can be great for sharing information but most would agree that texts are not always necessary and can lead to some not so great things (as well as can document some of the not great decisions that young people sometimes make). One of the most extreme examples of the negatives of text messaging is the case of the young woman who sent numerous messages encouraging her depressed boyfriend’s suicide. In the Timothy Piazza case, prosecutors allege that fraternity members used text messages to orchestrate an attempt to hide evidence.

Pictures, videos and other means of capturing the moment are also some wonderful features of our cellphones. Unfortunately, each of those wonderful features also allow for misuses and abuses, especially on a college campus. Students sometimes need a reminder to be judicious in their “capturing of the moment” on their phones and then sharing it on social media.

There are amazing smartphone applications that can both help and hinder a student’s success on campus. Most have their ups and downs. Last semester I learned about Venmo, a site owned by PayPal that lets users make financial transactions on their phone. Gone are the days of “here is my $5 for the pizza we shared.” Students (and now their instructor) use it to split costs of dinners, apartment utility bills and so forth. It also broadcasts your transactions to all the other Venmo users unless you set your settings to private. Sadly, there are many more applications – with both good and bad intentions and consequences – that I don’t know about that students use in lieu of face to face interaction.

Cellphones should not be used to conduct research, despite their ability to access the internet. Taking pictures of the instructor’s classroom slides on your phone may augment your notes but should not replace them. Recording a lecture or a meeting or a conversation should not happen without the other person’s permission. GroupMe or other similar applications should not a substitute for an in-person group project meeting.  

Cellphones are a wonderful thing when used properly. A better bet? Get out there and share some space and some conversation with your peers, the faculty and staff and the new community of Penn State.