Teens don’t think texting affects grades

By Kiegee Proctor
Photo by Kiegee Proctor

Murray Middle School student Nicole Newton said she uses her cell phone to text messages to her friends in school every day.

Newton said that if she did not have electronic devices such as her phone she would go crazy.

According to the New York Times, average children between 8 and 18 spend more than seven and a half hours on electronic devices and it is starting to change their behavior and to bring down their grades.

But Newton said that is not the case with her. “I have good grades. I have all Bs on my report card. I would never get an F.”

Newton’s friend and schoolmate, La’teefah Green, agrees. Green said that she mostly gets As, Bs and Cs. “I got an F in science and that’s all, ” she said.

Murray doesn’t allow students to use their cell phones at all on campus, so that may be the reason their grades haven’t suffered as much as other students nationwide.

Green said if students at Murray get caught using their phones at school then their parents take them away.

In January 2010, the Flagler College Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) chapter launched Mission: Media, a program that lets St. Augustine’s Boys and Girls Club children control the news for a day.
In Mission: Media, the children generate and develop story ideas in a “news budget” meeting that SPJ members lead before heading out into the field. Each SPJ member guides a few children through the city and helps them find and interview sources. After the children finish reporting, they return to the Flagler College Gargoyle office to write and publish their work here.