Students already have laptops and cellphones, of course, but the newest devices can take class distractions to a new level.
Even undergraduate students can immerse themselves completely in the lab under the guidance of an older student, with minimal class distractions.
Not only has this created new forms of in-class distraction and revolutionized campus communication, but it has begun to transform teaching itself.
The White House needed a world-class distraction and the Stewart jury, eager to wrap things up before the weekend, obliged.
Media reports to the public, as with most peaceful anti-capitalist action, caricatured Occupy a naïve, trivial, and middle-class distraction.
Posing in an appropriate backdrop he has inveighed against Oxbridge elitism, told Muslim women to learn English, and offered vouchers for parenting classes – all distractions from banging on about Europe.
Allowing cellphones in school at all makes for distraction, class disruption and restricted learning.
Technologies like Facebook apps and Google Glass permit a scant upper class to find distraction.
The use of laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. during class creates a distraction for yourself, your classmates and your instructor (not to mention being just plain rude).
Based on prior research it is likely that mind-wandering is more of an influence during class, but external distraction is more of an influence during studying (e.g., Unsworth, McMillan, et al., 2012).
