Search

Advances in information technology and communication through new social media platforms have enormous benefits in many contexts, including education. At the same time, self-distractive use of technology -- or 'absent presenteeism' -- can have negative effects in the classroom. The main research question of this study is the relationship between organisational leadership, enforcement of discipline and self-distractive use of technology in the secondary school setting. The finding indicated that the permissive style of discipline appeared to be the most effective at reducing self-distractive mobile phone use. However, a more authoritative style of discipline, short teacher tenure and the principal's transformational leadership style contributed to high self-distractive mobile phone use. The authors rely on empirical data collected in Israeli public high schools from two independent sources: 144 teachers and 591 students, which yielded 4440 teacher-student events. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of the school setting characterised by rapid changes in technology.