2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Drawing inspiration from Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book “The Anxious Generation,” the dean of a small private engineering college purchased two class sets of Faraday phone bags. These bags block wireless signals, ensuring there will be no texts, notifications, or other distractions from students’ phones. These bags are being used in two courses during the fall 2025 semester. This study will investigate the value of removing classroom technology in an effort to enhance student learning.

One instructor is conducting this experiment in a junior-level data communications course. The instructor of this course was motivated to try the Faraday bags because in past offerings, students in this course have appeared distracted and have not participated well in classroom discussions. The Faraday bags have been used since the beginning of the semester. Preliminary anecdotal results from the study indicate that the 45 students in this course are more attentive and engaged, and student performance on a key assessment is markedly higher than the last course offering.

Another instructor is conducting this experiment in a first-year engineering design course. The instructor was motivated to volunteer for this experiment because one of the three course outcomes is related to effective communication. The classroom layout is organized to encourage communication and much of the course emphasizes teamwork. Yet when students arrive to the classroom, they often get on their phones before class begins rather than talk with their teammates. The Faraday bag study is being conducted in 2 of the 8 sections of this course.

For the first two weeks of the semester, no phone bags were used in the first-year course. Of the 32 and 30 students in each of the respective sections, an average of 9 students were on their phones as class was set to begin.

The bags were then used for 10 consecutive first-year classes and the students were anonymously surveyed (n = 53/62). Results are positive, with 42% indicating they’d like to continue using the bags for every future class, 32% indicating they’d like to use the bags in some future classes, and only 26% indicating that they would not like to use the bags moving forward. One student noted: “I enjoy this experiment as I think it is rude when people are on their phones too much and having the bags helps me to not think about my phone during class.”

At the end of this semester, more quantitative likert-style survey data and open-response qualitative survey data will be collected. For the first-year course, Faraday bag users’ data will be compared with the other 6 sections. Assessment scores will also be compared with other sections and previous years. Based on this data, the college dean may opt to purchase a Faraday phone bag for all students in the college.