To the editor:
Re: Texting / classroom etiquette
Letter to the editor:
After receiving your syllabus from your professor it’s more common now to hear the professor express their dislike for students’ texting during class. They explain how they have no tolerance for it and how disrespectful it is. I have to agree with the professors. It’s distracting to the professor and to other students equally. The buzzing of a text message alert and the clicking of the keypad are enough to cause a distraction. One of my professors called texting to be an addiction and asked us to reframe from checking our messages during class time.
Last semester many professors added that laptops could be used to take notes. However, warnings of using social media websites would not be tolerated. I asked a friend how one of her classes went for her during the previous semester. She said she managed the class by utilizing her professor’s office hours. She told me that as more graded exams were returned, the more she noticed students logging onto their Facebook profiles during the lecture.
In the past, many professors let the individuals continue on with their texting during their class time. If the student wasn’t going to pay full attention then it would be on them. At first I agreed with the professors’ logic. Overtime my view changed as the distraction developed. The distraction now affects students sitting near texting-mctexter. I respect professors for interrupting someone from texting during class. It’s absurd to think we could start a platform for students who don’t let other students text during class.
Syllabi week allows for professors to have a firm voice in communicating rules against the use of a cell phone from the first day. One thing that amazes me the most with the popularity of texting is how the problem will be in only a few years from now. A classmate of mine, as she completed student teaching, remarked how she could understand the frustration of cell phones waiting on the classroom desk. Maybe it will take a turn of the table for more to understand the annoyance of the distraction after they’ve experienced it.
–Ginger Rae Dunbar is a fifth-year student majoring in English with a minor in journalism. She can be reached at RD655287@wcupa.edu.