Hi there. I’m meteorologist and science teacher Ryan Miller. I’ve got your science for everyone segment. And today’s topic, we’re gonna look at and see the impacts of these devices, smartphones, cell phones, on the processes of teaching and learning. And, folks, as a public school educator of over 23 years, I have seen profound changes in the teaching and learning as these devices become more prevalent. Let’s take a look for a moment at why this has become an issue. Nine out of 10 Americans actually own a smartphone and use it regularly. And 17 out of 23 major studies have recently indicated that the cell phone presence and the use of a device such as this in the classroom has a negative impact on teaching and learning. And with so many people having these devices present and so many difficulties in trying to police the use of these devices inside the classroom, we see these impacts. Here’s another study that I came across as I did some research at the university of Toledo. They looked at students there, and if the students at the university of Toledo, the ones that were studied, increased their use on a daily basis by one hour of a smartphone, that dropped their G P A. By point one, five, two points. So the more use of the phone, the lower the grade point average went. That’s a big deal when you’re paying big bucks for an education like in college, and there’s That huge impact right there. Some other studies are indicating that the mere presence of this device will reduce your cognitive abilities, your ability to problem solve, to reason, to learn. The mere presence without even using it will reduce that ability to learn by up to 40 percent. The number goes even higher when you start using this device. As a teacher, you don’t want me using this device if it’s going to reduce my ability to teach your children by up to 40%. As a student, you don’t want to reduce your ability to learn by 40%. Or pilots. Or can. Can you imagine a surgeon if they had their presence of their phone somewhere in eyesight, that that could reduce their ability to do their jobs? The impacts are certainly obvious. How do we fix this? How do we deal with this? It starts with actions that you can take. Increasing the communication between teachers and educators and educational administrators and parents. How can we work together to make sure these devices are used when it’s appropriate and not necessarily at times in the classroom? You can have apps that you can use to monitor the use of those devices and have it very accessible so that can control how much use of the phone is being observed. And perhaps you can put this down and we can see better impacts and improve education across all levels. When these phones get used at appropriate times only. That’s Your science for everyone segment a meteorologist and science teacher, Ryan Miller.