Cellphones are useful for multiple reasons: You can check your grades, use study tools, and communicate easily with family and friends.

In every classroom, there is sure to be at least one person who has a phone out, but we all know they’re probably not using it for class.

I am a phone owner, but I refrain from using my phone during class as it distracts me and other students from getting work done.

While we have the privilege to use phones during passing time and at lunch, we do not have the privilege to use them while a teacher is teaching.

The best place for a phone during class is in your backpack or pocket.

In fact, teachers all over the school have had to put classroom policies in place in which students have to keep phones in their backpacks, off, or in their lockers.

Not only is it distracting, but it’s also against the rules.

This can be found in the Code of Conduct in the “Major Behavioral Infraction” section.

“Students may not engage in inappropriate use of cell phones, electronic devices or computers which may be disruptive to the educational process.”

Not only is it against the rules, it’s also disrespectful.

There are people all around you in a school. Your friends want to talk to you, and when you’re on your phone you aren’t paying attention. We are awful at multitasking, and while we’re on the phone we can have trouble listening and responding in conversations.

In school or in public settings, the use of phones has been blown out of proportion.

In another example, last summer I went to New Orleans for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod National Youth Gathering with my church.

While I was in the streets looking at all the performers on Bourbon Street, I interacted with people from other countries and saw their cultures. I spent time with 25,000 other high school kids who believe in the same thing I do. We went to Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed the food there. We went to concerts with bands and listened to speakers from all over the country and beyond.

I had a ton of fun, but there is one thing I did differently than my friends: I didn’t take any photos.

All of the other students in my group photographed everything. Now when I ask them about specific moments of our trip, they don’t remember doing it or can’t remember who was there. They have to go back to the pictures they took and say, “Oh, yeah. I remember that now.”

We take photos of everything and anything that piques our interest. Everything we do should be experienced through our own eyes, but so many of our memories are seen through the lens of a camera or on the screen of a cellphone.

While the beauty of the world can be captured in photographs, we need to experience things to capture the memories we make.

We go to social events to take selfies, take pictures of people and things that interest us.

When was the last time you went to a birthday party and saw people singing to the birthday boy or girl without a phone in front of their faces? Or maybe the phone was in front of yours.

How can you cherish that moment when you aren’t seeing it while it’s right in front of you?

Next time there’s an event you’re attending, spend time with your friends and family — live in the moment. Try taking one or two pictures and then turning off your phone and putting it away.

Out of sight, out of mind.