At the start of the 2024 school year, the administration at Erie High School implemented a new policy that affects both freshmen and sophomores. Now these students will not have access to the Apple App Store on school-issued iPads. “I don’t know why the school did this,” Camden Fligg, a freshman, comments, “Why should the current freshmen suffer for what the sophomores did last year when they were freshman?” However some sophomores have noticed an issue with this rule. Braeden Fligg, a sophomore, noticed that “Last year there were a lot of kids playing games in class.” He generally thinks of the change as a net positive, but clarifies that, “not every app needed for school is available on Self Service.” This was echoed by Camden, “I need this specific app for my Art class, and Self Service doesn’t offer it.” Self Service is the school districts in house App Store.
Despite the administration’s good intentions behind the change, the in house app store does not seem to include all apps needed for some classes. This might be an ongoing issue, as new apps are coming out all the time, and the district has to approve each one that makes it onto Self Service.
With this in mind, why did Erie High School decide to take this drastic measure in banning the App Store outright? I decided to do some more in depth research and came across a study from 2020 titled Gen Z and Digital Distractions in the Classroom: Student Classroom Use of Digital Devices for Non-Class Related Purposes, by researchers at University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In the study, researchers found that students that have non-school related apps up to 87% lose attention in class and subsequently grades start to lower While this study focuses on Gen Z college students, and college may seem far off for Erie High School’s freshmen and sophomores, the similarities are there. Both groups involve new students in a new environment, who are more likely to fall back on familiar ways of dealing with boredom, unfortunately causing grades to fall.
Knowing this, and acknowledging that new educational apps are coming out every day, how should the administration at Erie High School adapt to the ever changing environment that is education in the digital age? “I don’t think they should reverse their decision, but lighten the restrictions,” says Braeden Fligg.
Finding a flexible way to allow access to necessary digital resources, while instilling those good habits of tolerating the occasional bit of boredom now will help freshmen and sophomores down the road
