Most teachers would agree that technology in the classroom is beneficial for themselves, but technology with students can be a bit of a mixed bag.  Some teachers move about the classroom, eager to snatch up a cell phone. Others become prominent features in a student’s Snapchat story.

The question remains: what is our more connected society doing to us? Researchers at Microsoft  have announced that technology is shortening the attention spans of many students making them less engaged into the lesson their teacher is giving them, even though it has a plentiful amount of uses in the class and in society, but it also has just the same or about the same as many uses to distract you from what needs to be accomplished.

At Tahoma High School, when digging to get the “teacher’s perspective” of this topic, it was necessary to see how teachers viewed how technology affected students.  Ms. Morgan responded .“technology can be beneficial and negative depending on how the student uses it.” Ms. Morgan elaborated, “ If you’re not using a phone to help with your assignment then it can be distracting”. It’s hard to resist your phone when you hear it ring, or vibrate, while you’re doing homework, it’s very easy to get distracted by it, but you have to find a way to turn it off.

Along with “teachers perspective” the “student perspective” of this topic is important, “How does technology affect students?”  “technology can be good or bad,” said Tahoma freshman Daniela Barros. “What kind of technology is good and what kind are bad? “The chromebook is a great resource in school and has many pros” Okay well what are the “bad” ways technology is used? “When people are on shopping websites or YouTube it distracts them from doing the work assigned to them in their google classroom,” said Barros.

Technology in a school can be good or bad, but should it be present in school or completely banned? Technology is bad for education in a variety of ways, technology is also a  distraction depending on how you use it. Kids who look at TV or listen to music while doing homework tend to get off task and end up not finishing it or have poor quality, supporting this claim, the “New York Times” provided further evidence finding “of the 685 teachers surveyed in the Common Sense project, 71 percent said they thought technology was hurting attention span ‘somewhat’ or ‘a lot’. About 60 percent said it hindered students’ ability to write and communicate face to face, and almost half said it hurt critical thinking and their ability to do homework.” It is an easy conclusion to say that without the proper balance of use of technology to education then technology will continue to have a negative effect on students.

Teens are spending more than one-third of their days using media such as online video or music — nearly nine hours on average, according to a new study from the Common Sense Media. For tweens, those between the ages of 8 and 12, the average is nearly six hours per day. With so much time not being used for education, no wonder scientist think our attention spans are getting smaller.

Technology is not completely bad for the student, in some ways it can be very beneficial. Chromebooks are a laptop that teachers let students use, to do work online. They are a great resource for teachers to have because it allows the teacher to take the learning beyond the classroom. Therefore technology can be used negatively and positively, it all depends on the student.