I'm taking a community college statistics course right now, through the UCLA extension program. Even though I'm only 29, I've found myself experiencing a lot of horrifying "back in my day" moments. Here's one: The class costs $575, and a parking pass for the quarter costs an extra $129. Because this isn't high school, presumably no one is being forced to take the class, except in the sense that you can use the credit when applying to a four-year college down the road.
This is why I'm always amazed that many of the (mostly younger) students around me sit in class with their phones in their hands, quietly scrolling, playing and texting while the teacher lectures, writes math problems on the board and asks the class to participate. In fact, a group of friends who sit behind me in class has appointed one person to take notes for everyone to scan later, so the rest of them can scroll on their phones until it comes time to sign the attendance sheet. .
What's going on here? Disrespect (for the teacher and their own education) and a misguided belief in multitasking, are a couple of things that come to mind. But what if my fellow students actually can't put down their phones "not even to pay attention to a fairly complex class that they paid a lot of money to take? Research on the possibility of cell phone addiction is an emerging field, and a lot of it centers on the habits of the youngest millennials (now teens and young adults), a generation that can't remember what it was like to not have a cell phone. A recent study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions found that female college students spend an average of 10 hours a day on their cell phones, while male students report spending nearly eight. The study also found that about 60 percent of study participants think they may be addicted to their cell phones. "That's astounding," said lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.