Smartphone use in classrooms remains a controversial issue in modern education. Most, if not all classrooms prohibit its use, regardless of the purpose.

Like all such issues, there are valid arguments for both sides of the debate. The question is, which side outweighs the other? Well, in the defense of smartphone usage for educational purposes, technology is improving with more scientific discoveries being made daily. Technology is something we must all cherish, rather than disparage and spurn. To impede technological advances and its use is to stop the future from happening.

Benefits of using smartphones include being able to download textbook files straight to your phone, making it an immensely light weight product, compared to heavy textbooks. You can also download the files, sooner than it would take to purchase them at a bookstore, or waiting for them to arrive at your doorstep.

By learning and practicing the usage of smartphones and its programs, it gives everyone an opportunity to further polish their skill set with these devices, benefiting from it in the long run, as they will have had experience using these devices and programs, which most jobs now require as a known ability.

Another argument made in the justification of smartphone usage in classrooms is simply the urge and propensity of the student body to check their smartphones anyway. Attempting to hinder the usage of it, would realistically be like trying to stop a disease from spreading.

Smartphones could replace textbooks and school material in the near future. There is a reason these devices are deemed smart: They have the necessary tools needed in potential everyday situations. Whether it be social media, calculators, search engines, the web, etc., smartphones are all-in-one devices.

These facts far override the cons and ramifications of smartphones in class rooms. We can either live in the past, and live as recluses to time, or we can embrace the gifts that inventors have given us, the very people we all wish to someday become: successful. We can learn to adapt to the world we live in today, and use these benefits that our ancestors never had to our advantage.