It's fair to say we have reached the point in this age of the smartphone where we can admit that the collective addiction has peaked, and needs to be addressed.

As we sit in cafes and malls and offices and parks and playgrounds, scrolling and tapping and watching clips and reading memes and living vicariously through social media, there are articles and studies and even entire books being published about the negative consequences of this collective absorption.

Our attention spans are getting shorter, sleep and mental health are suffering and parents aren't engaging fully enough with their kids.

And this is just for adults. How, then, can smartphones be affecting teenagers? How can high school students – with minds like sponges but so easily bored – be engaged with the education process if they have the proverbial alternative world right there in their pockets?

More than a decade ago, it would have been hard to fathom the use of smartphones in classrooms.

Most of us remember being chastised if we were ever caught with one.

And students these days cannot quite fathom learning without them.

There is no argument that smartphones are a wonder of the modern world, and it's impossible to revert to life before we had them. But they are also an almost irresistible distraction for anyone who knows how to use them.

Learning is challenging, and requires engagement, participation and dedication – anything that interferes with that process would appear to be a negative.

For this tech-savvy generation of students, a few hours in the day without a phone in their hands could only be a good thing.

It is how a majority of us were raised and for the most part, turned out alright because of it.

Learning methods have to evolve with the times but what would the real harm be if teenagers were to dedicate just a fraction of their time to a smartphone-free existence?