Depending upon what generation that you are, you may or may not have had the experience of smart cell phones being in the hands of individuals in a classroom setting or a business setting, if not, as most people are now well aware, smart cell phones are ubiquitous in both areas nowadays and therein lies a massive problem. While the usage of cell phones in school as well as in a business environment can theoretically be a benefit, or certainly be a convenience for staying in touch with others, the lack of discipline and self-control in the usage of these cell phones, in addition, to the ability to use cell phones to surreptitiously record audio or video has a serious impact on society, which is typically not for the better.
On the positive side of the ledger for cell phone usage in school or at work, is that it allows people to stay in real-time contact with critical information, whether that be personal or school or work related, which has a value, especially for tasks that require real-time input from the other party. However, other than that, pretty much everything else about cell phone usage at school or at work is an unmitigated disaster.
The very first problem that people have with cell phones is that significantly way too many people are essentially subjugated to them. That is to say, if your phone rings, or buzzes, or does whatever that indicates that you have received a text message, or phone call, or email, it doesn't seem to matter much what you are doing, or whether you actually respond to that disruption immediately, because the very fact that you are aware that you have a new "contact" with the outside world, breaks often your concentration, in a manner in which losing that focus, impairs the task that you were currently working on. For instance, ask yourself the question, would you want the surgeon working upon your body to have their cell phone in their pocket while conducting such surgery and the most probable answer is that you would most definitely not! The reason that you don't want your surgeon to have that cell phone when performing an intensive specific task is that you do not want to see their cognitive process, their intense focus, interrupted by an unanticipated outside source.
The above actually indicates that it isn't even good enough to not answer your cell phone or to not respond to your cell phone when you know you have been contacted, because in order to really maintain focus and concentration you need the cell phone to either be out of your possession completely or completely silenced so that the interruption of your train of thought never occurs. Nevertheless, students and workers, actually keep their cell phones all the way on, or have them on vibrate, believing wrongly that they can successfully do a good job or study while having this constant distraction, or actually not really caring, because they don't much care about school or their job performance to begin with.
The fact that so many people are enthralled with their cell phones, means that you will see students doing just about anything to camouflage their usage of, to the discredit of their academic performance; as well as in the workplace you will come across disturbing things, such as when someone that is directing traffic on a road, or repairing such, rather than keeping their eyes and concentration on traffic, or on the repairing of that infrastructure, actually have their eyes down on their cell phone, because they figure, they can still sort of competently do their job, or that they can actually multi-task.
All of the above, really means, the self-control needed by so many to keep their concentration, so as to actually perform their jobs well, is sorely lacking, making for poorer students, less efficient workers, and unnecessarily increasing danger when tasks that require focused attention have been disrupted. This would indicate that the usage of cell phones should be far more restricted, far more often.