Helping students to disconnect involves encouraging self-reflection on technology use, no-tech class activities and apps and phone settings that provide motivation for more no-mobile-device time.

But it's no fiction that college professors may go to great lengths in response to students using cellphones and other computer devices inappropriately in class.

Is it necessary coddling or just good science to give college students breaks to check their phones? Anthropologist Barbara J. King takes a look.

During technology breaks lasting just one minute, phone use was at its lowest, making them most efficient at reducing the time students spent on their phones during class.

Students who were given the shortest phone break—which totaled one minute—had the highest test grades and were the most attentive during class.

Technology breaks reduce cell phone use in college classrooms but have mixed results on academic performance, suggesting further investigation is needed.

During technology breaks lasting just one minute, phone use was at its lowest, making them most efficient at reducing the time students spent on their phones during class.

Move over, coding. Some schools are asking student programmers to think critically about rapid advances in artificial intelligence.