Exploring environmental cues of smartphone digital distraction in class for adolescents

Smartphone use and ownership has become extensive for adolescents as an essential tool for conducting their social and digital lives. In the classroom smartphones can be a distraction from learning tasks which can lead to conflict between teachers and students, and negative learning outcomes. There is limited research examining the environmental cues that leads to smartphone use in the secondary classroom. This study applied an interpretive methodology to explore students’ experience of smartphone distraction in class. Students from three junior classes in a New Zealand secondary school participated in the study. The participants were observed in the classroom environment and data were collected through focus group interviews. A socio-material framework underpinned the research to explore the complex interactions experienced by students with their teachers, smartphones, and learning environments that prompted non-school related smartphone use in class. Environmental cues for non-school related smartphone use identified included pedagogical factors, physical environment features and social factors. Pedagogical factors included practices that made it difficult for students to engage with learning tasks, an absence of learning tasks or inconsistent enforcement of classroom smartphone rules. Physical factors included environmental comfort of the classroom, an absence of functioning and readable clocks, the proximity and movement of the teacher in the classroom, and the placement and settings of smartphones. Social factors included peer influence and social isolation. The range of perspectives presented by student participants indicates that the influence of environmental cues is dependent on complex socio-material networks in each learning environment. Implications including how teachers and schools can reduce the environmental cues for non-school related smartphone use in class are discussed.