Smart distraction: The Challenge of phones in schools

Source: Nida Al Watan

At one private school in Beirut, a strict policy immediately stands out: students’ phones are collected at the start of the school day and returned only after the final class. But Samer Y., a Grade 8 student who ranked third in his class last year and is known for his addiction to his phone, says: “As soon as school ends, the phone becomes a magnet that pulls hours of my time. I feel lost between checking the messages I received on WhatsApp and keeping up with my homework.”

His geography teacher comments: “Today, the phone in a student’s hand is a double-edged force. It is a tool of entertainment and distraction, but it can also become a way to balance learning and technology if used wisely.”

The cost of constant notifications

In this context, engineer Ali Ahmad, an expert in digital transformation and artificial intelligence for public and private institutions, says: “Smartphone addiction is a major obstacle to academic achievement today, especially since most students who use these phones constantly, even during study time, are exposed to serious distraction, particularly in attention span.”

He adds: “Distraction does not come from one factor alone. Any message or notification will automatically and unconsciously push the phone holder to look and check its source.”

Ahmad, who also serves as CEO of several local and international technology companies, says the issue goes beyond attention. Late-night phone use affects both sleep quality and sleep duration.

He stresses that this problem is not limited to Lebanon but is global, although relatively more visible here than in many other countries. The issue, he says, is not the phone itself, but how it is used.

A study titled Smartphone Addiction and Attention Levels Among High School Students, published on June 1, 2023, in Al-Etimad Magazine, found that increased smartphone usage time is associated with higher levels of addiction and reduced attention during study.

Students who spent longer hours on their phones were found to suffer greater distraction from homework and lessons.

The study also cited field research covering more than 300 schools in the Netherlands, showing that 75 percent of schools that banned phones inside classrooms saw noticeable improvement in student concentration during lessons, while one-third reported better academic results after implementing the ban.

Another study titled Mobile Phone Addiction and Its Relationship to Sleep Quality and Academic Achievement Among Students (2025), published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, found that mobile phone addiction is clearly linked to poor sleep quality among students.

It also found negative effects on health and academic performance. Among its main conclusions was a strong relationship between excessive phone use and poor sleep, with recommendations to reduce usage in order to improve academic results and mental health.

These findings support the need to regulate phone use within the educational environment and apply effective policies to control distraction, rather than viewing the phone only as a useful tool.

Why the problem feels worse in Lebanon

As for the reasons behind the spread of this phenomenon among students, Ahmad stresses that Lebanon’s economic crisis, especially since the October 17 uprising, has turned the phone into a source of entertainment for many students.

He also points to electricity cuts and internet outages, which disrupt study schedules.

“When electricity and internet return,” he says, “the student leaves their books and turns to the phone to make up for what they missed during the outage.”

He adds that Lebanese society’s strong attachment to social media also increases distraction among students.

Ahmad believes dealing with the issue varies according to each school’s mobile phone policy, noting that bans have become common in many Lebanese schools.

He adds that once the school day ends, students often turn to heavy phone use to compensate for being deprived of it for six hours, becoming isolated and fully absorbed in the device.

“When you speak to them, they may not reply at all, or only after several attempts,” he says.

Schools cannot do it alone

These realities have pushed many schools to launch awareness campaigns about the risks of addiction.

However, Ahmad says the role of the school remains incomplete without the role of parents through supervision, guidance, and a thoughtful, scientific policy in dealing with the issue.

As for evaluating the success of these policies, Ahmad says it requires accurate statistics and field studies involving schools, teachers, students, parents, and educational specialists.

In this regard, the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report (2023) states that the effectiveness of educational policies is measured through quantitative and qualitative indicators derived from field data, such as achievement rates, success levels, and concentration levels.

The report also notes that digital school systems have become an essential tool in evaluating and improving educational performance.

In conclusion, Ahmad stresses that neither schools nor parents can rely on total prohibition, because we now live in the age of technology and depend on interactive learning, including educational games that attract students.

When participation and performance improve, he says, it means these methods are effective.

The greater goal is not to eliminate technology, but to achieve balance between technology use and academic achievement, because technology has become an inseparable part of daily life.