Is technology helping or hurting students' grades?

Technology Distracting Students in College Classes

Snapchat, Texting, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc... There are many things every college student can do on their phones. Getting distracted from class is very easy to do when on the phone. Being on a phone while in class is crucial simply because they can miss something important a teacher has to say which can potentially be useful in the future. Phones are great devices and are very useful, but there is a time and place for everything, using it in class is not the time nor place to do it. Their not only distracting themselves but others as well.
Technology has been a great advantage to today's college students. Advantages include looking up credible data, taking notes, and many college students even go as far as recording a lecture to review when studying. The problem is that because of how big social networks are, people loose concentration at times to check their Facebook and such. Social networks could be helpful at times, many people make study groups or have discussions over a specific topics on them. The problem with this is that there are also other topics going on that are not school related. For example, on Facebook anyone could make a group dedicated to school, but at the same time anyone could also make a group for a party. What im trying to say is that there will always be a factor of distractions on these websites.
Many teachers are lenient about students using laptops and phones in class. But  others do not tolerate technology because they know how much of a distraction factor it could be. In my opinion the best solution for this would be to send the students who are distracted on social websites to the back of the class and have the students who are more serious about the class sit on the front. I believe it would be more helpful because students who are committed to the class wont see other students checking their Facebook and such, therefore they will be less tempted to open their own. Mostly everyone has a Facebook profile, even my friends cat has one. Seeing other people on Facebook can distract a certain individual into tempting him/her to see their own profile.
In my opinion there is nothing more distracting than a phone. That's a problem when it comes to classes, but what if phones are being used in a chemistry lab? All of the chemicals being used in a chem lab are real, therefore real reactions occur. People who are participating in these labs should not be distracted by whatever technology they have. When participating in a lab, an individual must be focused and must be following all the instructions the instructor is giving. Being distracted may cause an individual to miss a step in the process or maybe even get a different chemical than the one needed. Missing a step or using the wrong chemical could have huge negative consequences. The distracted individual is not only putting himself in danger, but others as well. The best solution to avoiding these accidents would be to just pay as much attention as possible and to keep the phone in the book bag, sending a text or checking Facebook is not worth a persons life.

 

In conclusion, technology is a great advantage to our society, but it is also a disadvantage. Many people tend to abuse technology and are in a sense addicted to it. Everywhere an individual goes, there were always be someone lost in their phones. Its okay if they want to spend their time looking at a screen, the problem comes when other people are affected as well. In a university classroom, mostly everyone is using technology, but not everyone is using it for classroom or lecture purposes. In my opinion the best thing to do is to separate the people who are lost in their technology and the ones who are actually paying attention. And Technology should not be allowed in a lab unless the technology is needed for the lab. That way people are more safe and less accidents take place.