Throughout the day, his headphones are in and notifications are popping up consistently. For at least 10 minutes each hour, senior Joey Albers Prize is on his phone. While much of that time is spent checking social media or playing games, a lot of it is also spent studying for his next test or checking when an assignment is due.

“I feel like [frequent phone use] would bring your grade down just because if you’re always on it like you could be distracted from homework or distracted during class,” junior Hannah Stoltman said.

As technology is used more and more in the daily lives of teenagers, a new age issue has come up about how it affects their academic performance. Albers Prize, like many students, uses his phone during classes and frequently throughout the day.

“Whenever I’m in class and using my phone, I usually don’t end up doing my homework and my grade drops,” senior Joshua Wright said.

As cell phones can be very distracting, it’s difficult to see how it can actually be used to their help their education. Albers Prize finds educational benefits with his phone by using apps like Quizlet. The app can be used as a study tool similar to flashcards and many students use it to help review for classes. Since many teachers have begun to post lecture notes, video lessons, due date reminders and other resources on their personal websites or Google Classroom, Albers Prize uses these to help him stay up to date in his classes.

“Sometimes when I procrastinate on homework I go on my phone and it distracts me a lot more than it probably should,” Albers Prize said. “I use [my phone] to study a lot. If I didn’t have Quizlet I would not be studying as much because it’s so much easier to just study whenever you’re checking your phone for a couple minutes,” Albers Prize said.

Despite phone usage being widely discouraged in classrooms, Albers Prize maintains good grades. He has found a balance between being productive and relaxing alongside his frequent phone use. A student being on their phone too often can result in their grades declining, but with proper time management and staying off of their phones during classes, one can still learn the material and perform well academically.

“I feel like technology is coming much more prominent and teachers can use that in a good way, and it kind of takes away from the view of technology being bad,” Albers Prize said.