What Do You Tell Your Students About Phone Use in Class?

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00:00:04.840 | This question comes from Annalisa,

00:00:08.840 | who asks, what do you tell your students

00:00:11.840 | about phone use in class?

00:00:15.720 | Well, my policy has converged to me not bringing it up.

00:00:21.520 | Essentially, the configuration of the type of classes I teach

00:00:26.320 | are such that it is to your peril

00:00:29.520 | if you are trying to divide your attention.

00:00:31.840 | Because I teach technical classes--

00:00:34.280 | algorithms, mathematics, theoretical computer science--

00:00:38.720 | if you stop paying attention to look at your phone,

00:00:40.960 | you will miss the thing I'm explaining.

00:00:42.840 | And if you miss the thing I'm explaining,

00:00:45.280 | that's going to be an issue, because you need

00:00:47.120 | know how to do it for your exam.

00:00:48.420 | So because of the technical rigor of my classes,

00:00:50.480 | it's just a natural side effect that most people

00:00:52.520 | aren't going to use their phone.

00:00:53.920 | And if people want to, then I think

00:00:55.480 | there's just natural consequences.

00:00:57.200 | I'm not really of the mindset that I should

00:00:59.920 | be talking to fellow adults.

00:01:02.240 | And if you're at college, you're a fellow adult,

00:01:04.280 | and telling them how they should or shouldn't behave,

00:01:07.160 | we'll leave them up to that to make that discovery.

00:01:09.720 | Two things to say about this, though.

00:01:11.480 | One, I may have a biased perspective.

00:01:14.540 | Because my reputation now precedes me,

00:01:16.960 | my students might be unusually compliant about not

00:01:20.360 | using the phone in a way that other academics might not

00:01:23.280 | enjoy.

00:01:24.280 | In other words, they might be a little bit nervous

00:01:26.440 | to be on their phone in a Cal Newport class.

00:01:28.280 | That might be going on.

00:01:29.800 | Two, I will say there was an occasion a few years ago,

00:01:34.360 | teaching a PhD level class.

00:01:37.120 | It was a theory of computer science, doctoral theory class.

00:01:41.200 | And there were some students on their phone.

00:01:43.080 | Some of my grad students were on their phone.

00:01:44.920 | And I did talk to them about it.

00:01:46.320 | And I said, you know, this is a small class.

00:01:48.120 | It has complicated material.

00:01:49.360 | And I don't know if you should be on your phone

00:01:51.200 | or whatever it was.

00:01:52.160 | I actually confronted them about it.

00:01:54.080 | And it turned out that they were actually

00:01:56.480 | looking up what I was talking about in class.

00:01:59.480 | Or they had their textbook on their phone.

00:02:01.240 | I forgot exactly what it was.

00:02:02.240 | But it made complete sense why they were on their phone.

00:02:04.160 | They weren't looking at their email.

00:02:05.520 | They weren't looking at social media.

00:02:07.120 | They were actually trying to pay attention even better

00:02:09.280 | to what I was saying.

00:02:10.160 | So I kind of learned my lesson there.

00:02:12.040 | I'm not going to yell at people.

00:02:14.080 | I teach in such a way that it is in your benefit

00:02:18.880 | to pay attention.

00:02:19.760 | But if you want to check your phone, you're adults.

00:02:21.180 | And it's not my role to tell you what to do.

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What Do You Tell Your Students About Phone Use in Class?

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