Teachers’ Views on Digital Distraction

The aim of this study is to find out teachers' views on digital distraction. The sub-objectives of the study are to find out whether teachers experience digital distraction, in which environments they experience digital distraction, what they feel when they experience digital distraction and what precautions they take against digital distraction. The participants of the research, which was designated adopting with a phenomenological design, were a total of 81 teachers. As a result of content analysis, the reasons for encountering digital distraction were listed as advertising, latest news, alerts, the large amount of content on the Internet, being asked to look at a social media account, look at other studies when doing research, and other videos suggestions while watching a video interest/curiosity and boredom. The environments in which teachers experience digital distraction are social media, conducting research, social environment, shopping websites, work life and leisure time. The reasons for experiencing digital distraction in these environments include interest/curiosity, advertisements, notifications, boredom, news and the huge amount of content on the internet. Teachers experience negative emotions such as anger, sadness, and regret when they experience digital distraction. Teachers reported feeling happy because they were learning new information, they felt relaxed because they were moving away from the subject and resting, and happy because they were looking at things they were curious about. The precautions taken by teachers are self-control, turning off notifications, limiting the time spent digitally, taking the phone/computer away, not opening/closing too many tabs and installing ad/cookie blocker software.