In classrooms across Bangladesh, a quiet but powerful shift is taking place. Where once students focused on textbooks, teachers, and blackboards, many are now increasingly absorbed in the glowing screens of their smartphones. This transformation is not unique to Bangladesh, but its consequences are becoming more visible in our education system every day. A growing body of international research, including a recent study published in JAMA Network Open, highlights a troubling trend: excessive smartphone use during school hours is undermining students’ concentration, self-control, and overall learning capacity.

While the study was conducted in the United States, its findings are highly relevant to Bangladesh. Students everywhere share similar behavioral patterns when it comes to technology use, and in many ways, the situation in Bangladesh may be even more challenging due to limited classroom monitoring resources and rapidly increasing smartphone accessibility.

The recent research, conducted by experts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tracked the phone usage of students aged 11 to 18 over a two-week period. The results were alarming. Students checked their phones an average of 64 times per school day. Not only did this disrupt their attention, but it also revealed a deeper issue: those who used their phones more frequently showed weaker self-control and poorer performance on concentration tests.

In Bangladesh, the expansion of affordable internet and low-cost smartphones has made digital access easier than ever before. This is, in many ways, a positive development. It has opened doors to online learning, global knowledge, and communication. However, the lack of structured guidelines for smartphone use in schools has created an environment where devices often become tools of distraction........

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