The Death of Silence in the Classroom: How Demanding a No-Screen Classroom Creates Space for Interaction (and Learning!)
By Laura Watkins
University of Northwestern
It is the first day of classes for the semester, and I am energized and ready. As I near the door, I sense the classroom must be empty, as there is absolutely no noise coming from inside. As I enter the room, I realize I was dead wrong: there are 30 students seated in the room. All of them silent as they gaze at their phones, some of them boldly resting forearms on the table, others (not so) discreetly gazing down into their laps at their strategically “hidden” phones.
But I am not swayed. I know things will be different soon. In a week or two, I will hear the sometimes-quiet chatter and at other times loud, raucous laughter as I walk down the hall toward class. Hello, Silence; my name is Professor Watkins. Prepare to die.
Digital screens—especially mobile phones—are killing our students’ learning and relational interaction. This is a substantial problem that can be eliminated by creating a no-screen classroom. Doing so increases student learning (comprehension, focus, involvement) and peer connections (relational interaction, conversations).
The problem with a screen-induced silent classroom is this: The students are not talking to each other. They are not listening to the instructor. They are not comprehending what their eardrums are hearing. They are not showing nor practicing respectful attention to others around them, including the peer presenter at the front of the room. Instead, they are focused entirely on a three by six-inch rectangle of pixels behind glass.
And these behaviors are causing some big problems: In November of 2023 the World Health Organization declared loneliness a “pressing health threat.”[1] As individuals made in the image of a triune, relational God, we desire—rather, need—relationship and connection. The way we are currently living—bossing around Siri and Alexa, disrespectfully ignoring the people around us while we chuckle to ourselves on our phones, not listening, not focusing, forever distracted—we are not practicing the skills nor investing the time necessary to develop good, healthy relationships. And that is a problem. We have miniscule attention spans and abundantly present attention and learning disorders, with our devices a contributing factor to that reality.[2]
As a result, it is more difficult to obtain and keep our students’ attention. We use Kahoot, Google Form Surveys, and movie clips to get student engagement and excitement—with us and possibly with the content, but not always with one another. So, while the use of phones, playful apps, and puppy videos as a part of the classroom experience may be fun on occasion, it does not meet the enormous underlying need for real relationships our students are lacking—the same lonely, felt need that drives them back to their devices, which offer connection but not the real, filling, communing with one another we were made for.[3]
While the vast usefulness of digital technologies to the learning environment is evident, I see a need to address the impact the casual presence of these devices is having on our students. On all of us. Mobile phones are unique in their ability to distract us: their frequency of diverting our attention, omnipresence, and importance to us makes them especially potent. [4] They are a “supernormal stimulus”—highly addictive with their dopamine-triggering potential. [5] When not requested otherwise, our students often engage with their phones dozens of times per class session. This is costly to everyone.
My first students in 1999 were different from my students today. They had the blessed freedom to focus without the distractions of a phone or tablet beckoning them with notifications from apps that want clicks, girlfriends that want a morning greeting, and mothers who want to know if they made it to campus okay. Today, many students have never experienced one day when they were free to focus. The cognitive cost of that distraction is staggering. In their 2017 study, Ward, Duke, Gneezy, and Bos examined, among other things, student performance on a test in three conditions: student’s cell phone—in all cases with notifications turned off—face down on the desk, in the student’s pocket or bag, or left in a separate room. The students’ test scores—and working memory capacity—were highest when the phones were out of the room and lowest when on their desks.[6] Numerous other studies have also confirmed that, in addition to impacting test scores[7] and working memory,[8] students’ learning,[9] focus,[10],[11],[12] and cognitive abilities[13] are negatively impacted by the presence of mobile devices in the classroom and positively impacted by having no devices around. Ultimately, it seems mobile devices do, indeed, lower the ability of our students to learn, think, and recall as effectively as they would without phones present.
In addition to the impact on learning, cell phones also impact student relationship formation within the classroom.[14] In order to form a relationship, there must be interaction, and mobile phones are making this quite difficult. This is the big issue with silence, especially in the time before the teaching begins: it means no one is relating with one another. This is the silence I am most concerned about. Why? Because we were made to interact with one another and, in fact, the sense of pain and rejection humans can feel because of silence is enormous.[15] The disconfirmation a person communicates when choosing to look at something on their phone instead of talk with the person right beside them is impactful and real.[16] In my study of the impact of mobile phones at restaurant tables, the data is clear: people indicate that they share less deeply when the person they are with is on their phone.[17] We smile less at others while we are using a mobile phone.[18] This is greatly concerning: With 62% of college-aged students stating they are online almost constantly,[19] we have the potential for detrimental changes to the way we behave as human beings.[20] We were made to find the eyes of the classmate next to us attractive, not to swipe right on photos on Tinder. But as Song states in her book title, “We’re bowling alone, but online together.”[21]
So, I propose this: Completely eliminate all phones and laptops from the classroom. Make the classroom—not class time—a screen-free environment, as the time before and after class is priceless time for social interaction and making connections. Ask that, if they need to send a quick message or print something before class begins, they do so before coming into the classroom or step into the hallway to do so. (As a bonus, this also promotes a basic courtesy our students will benefit from in the professional environments they’ll be working in soon.) Enforce it kindly but firmly at the beginning of the semester and whenever needed afterward.
The college classroom has changed a lot since I began teaching in 1999, but the students remain the same: They are made in God’s image as relational beings. They are needing to grow in confidence, in identity, in relationships during their time as our students, and we can create an environment where there is real hope for the students in this regard.
I have found this practice benefits students in all courses and activities: During presentations and speeches, students give polite attention to their peers; during classroom discussions, they participate more fully; and during lectures, they are able to focus more easily. There really isn’t a course where the additional focus a screen-free environment offers isn’t beneficial. Of course, there are surely times screens are used: I ask students to use laptops for group research on crisis communication case studies and to pilot peers’ surveys in Research Methods. I say yes when a group asks to watch a movie trailer to select a movie for a group project and to create a group messaging list on one of their mobile phones. But, as a rule, the devices are all away, tucked out of sight in a pocket or a bag.
The implementation of this practice has not been very difficult when I have started the semester with clear expectations. After the simple syllabus statement of “Cellular phones, laptops, and other personal electronic devices are not allowed to be out of your bag in the classroom nor referenced unless specifically requested by the instructor for class use,” there is minimal classroom maintenance needed. Early in the semester I am consistent and cheerfully verbal in reminding students to put devices away during the time before class begins. By consistently doing this for a few class sessions, it really paves the way for a semester with few blatant violations of the class norm. And do I get upset if someone’s phone rings? No. I usually tease the individual a bit and share about when it was my phone that rang, and I was faced with rejecting my father-in-law’s call. (Oops!) If someone is clearly trying to hide the fact that they are on their phone, I will first just keep talking and walk over and stand next to them. (That usually takes care of it.) If the device remains out, I will ask the student to put their phone away in a fake-exasperated tone. If they simply lay it on the desk or slide it under their leg, I will remain looking at them and tell them to “Put it away away away.” If that does not work, I will tell them to put it in their bag. (Pause for compliance.) Right now. But it doesn’t usually come to that. And if it does, it only happens with a few students in each course. The students quickly catch on that I truly mean what I say.
Each semester, the students first think I am being controlling. (I am.) They think I am self-concerned in the request. (I am not.) But as I hold the line in a friendly-bossy way, they discover the relational and focus benefits of a screen-free classroom and grow to appreciate it. It is common to read positive student comments regarding this practice in evaluations: “I enjoyed the tech-free classroom a lot; I had the most connection with my peers in this class.” “I remember when I dreaded coming to class because of the no-technology rule, but now I am sad it’s over; the discussions were awesome.”
And the benefits are clear: Students with attention issues will be less distracted by their classmates playing Minecraft or browsing Amazon on their laptop. The shyest students will make a few new friends. The classroom will be noisy when you enter (and on occasion during a lull in class) with an active, relational, engaged noise that is beautiful to hear. In fact, praise such noise, reminding them how GOOD it is to hear them interacting.
The reality: their souls crave interaction. Few are getting enough. Many of their other classes are riddled with screens throughout, distracting all and silencing both class contribution and relational interaction. Help the only silence in your classroom be that of the pregnant pause—the active, thinking, formulating of words before great ideas are shared in a class discussion.
Join me in slaying the silence, so we can all hear our students’ interactions filling our classrooms as we walk down the hallway toward them. Your students will thank you.
Notes
[1] WHO Media Team, “Social Connection,” World Health Organization, November 15, 2023. News Release, https://www.who.int/news/item/15-11-2023-who-launches-commission-to-foster-social-connection.
[2]. Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020), 131-134.
[3]. Felicia Wu Song, Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021), 107-124.
[4]. Adrian F. Ward, Kristen Duke, Ayelet Gneezy, and Maarten W. Bos, “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity,” Journal of the Association of Consumer Research 2, no. 2 (April 3, 2017): 142, http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/691462.
[5]. Adrian F. Ward, “Supernormal: How the Internet Is Changing Our Memories and Our Minds,” Psychological Inquiry 24, no. 4 (December 11, 2013), 341.
[6]. Ward, Duke, Gneezy, and Bos, “Brain Drain,” 143-146.
[7]. Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy, “Ill Communication: Technology, Distraction, and Student Performance,” Labour Economics 41 (August 2016): 61-76.
[8]. Clarissa T. Tanil and Min Hooi Yong, “Mobile Phones: The Effect of Its Presence on Learning and Memory,” PLoS One 15, no. 8 (August 13, 2020): doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219233.
[9]. Seungyeon Lee, Myeong W. Kim, Ian M. McDonough, et al., “The Effects of Cell Phone Use and Emotional-Regulation Style on College Students’ Learning,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 31, no. 3 (May/June 2017): 360-366.
[10]. Cary Stothart, Ainsley Mitchum, and Courtney Yehnert, “The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 41, no. 4 (2015): 896.
[11]. Bill Thornton, Alyson Faires, Maija Robbins, and Eric Rollins, “The Mere Presence of a Cell Phone May Be Distracting: Implications for Attention and Task Performance,” Social Psychology, 45, no. 6 (2014): 479-88.
[12]. Kostadin Kushlev, Jason Proulx, and Elizabeth W. Dunn, “‘Silence Your Phones’: Smartphone Notifications Increase Inattention and Hyperactivity Symptoms,” Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (May 2016): 1011-1020.
[13]. Russell B. Clayton, Glenn Leshner, and Anthony Almond, “The Extended iSelf: The Impact of iPhone Separation on Cognition, Emotion, and Physiology,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20, no. 2 (March 2015):119-35.
[14]. Andrew K. Przybylski, and Netta Weinstein, “Can You Connect With Me Now? How the Presence of Mobile Communication Technology Influences Face-to-Face Conversation Quality.” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 30 no. 3. (2013): https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407512453827.
[15]. Evelyn Sieburg, “Interpersonal Confirmation: A Paradigm for Conceptualization and Measurement,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Montreal, Quebec, April 1973.
[16]. Shalini Mirsa, Lulu Cheng, Jamie Genevie, and Miao Yuan, “The iPhone Effect: The Quality of In-Person Social Interactions in the Presence of Mobile Devices.” Environment and Behavior 48, no. 2. (July 1, 2014): https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916514539755.
[17]. Laura Watkins, “An International View on the Use of Mobile Phones at Restaurant Tables: Does it Affect Conversational Depth?” Presentation, University of Northwestern Scholarship Symposium, St. Paul, MN, May 2025.
[18]. Kostadin Kushlev, John F. Hunter, Jason Proulx, Sarah D. Pressman, and Elizabeth Dunn, “Smartphones Reduce Smiles Between Strangers,” Computers in Human Behavior 91 (February 2019): 12-16.
[19]. Pew Research, “Majority of Adults Under 30 Say They’re Online Almost Constantly,” accessed May 17, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-use-of-mobile-technology-and-home-broadband/pi_2024-01-24_mobile-broadband_0-05-png/, January 31, 2024.
[20]. Mohammed M. Elsobeihi, and Samy S. Abu Naser, “Effects of Mobile Technology on Human Relationships: Effects of Mobile Technology on Human Relationships,” International Journal of Engineering and Information Systems 1, No. 5, (July 2017): 110-125, http://hdl.handle.net/10419/167579.
[21]. Felicia Wu Song, Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together (Austria: Peter Lang, 2009).