Yes, they should---smartphones at any rate. Parents are entitled to make their own parenting decisions, but when those decisions make it impossible for me to make mine in the context of a public school, then I have a problem with them. We are not allowing our kids to have smart phones until they are old enough to sign the contracts and pay for themselves. But other people's kids bring smartphones to school, they view inappropriate content on them and show that content to the other children, including my own. The smartphones also distrupt and distract everyone, interfering with my child's right to a quality education. It's not difficult calculus, really. Schools frequently don't allow kids to bring adult content in other forms to school and they often don't allow toys (electronic or otherwise), usually taking these things away when teachers see them. Importantly, there's also zero upside to smartphones and no necessity---people can buy their kids dumb phones if they insist on constant access to direct communication with them.
Agree. My husband was commenting yesterday that it kids are not permitted to bring Pokémon cards to school because of the problems and distractions. But a phone can be in their backpack? Ridiculous.
I'd be happier with Pokemon cards by far. At least the game requires face-to-face interaction, contains no porn, no obvious indications of ideological force-feeding by one side of a contentious issue or other, and it makes them think a bit (despite the randomness). If only that were the big distraction at schools.
What would that solve? "Internet access" is exactly where the problems come through. It would be almost identical to giving a kid a dumb phone plus an internet-enabled laptop or tablet.
that depends on what you exactly mean by "smartphone and "flip phone with internet access", or more exactly on how you distinguish one from the other. It doesn't matter what an object is or how it's called. If you give a kid anything that has internet access and enough support to install even just whatsapp, like e.g. a Nokia model whose name now escapes me, she'll still be exposed to bullying, losing sleep etc... almost as much as if she had the latest iPhone
You can give Internet access on any kind of device that you wish.
If that device has a tiny screen, like my flip phone does, you won't be able to see much clearly thereupon. You also won't be able to plug in earbuds to listen to stereo sound, so Youtube is an impossibility, along with the majority of social media websites. Apps cannot be installed on my flip phone.
If you give a bored child something that can break the boredom, it doesn't matter how the boredom gets broken. Even a challenged child will be able to fine a way to break the boredom. The trick is to reduce their options to things that are keyed to the classroom they are in, and an intranet is all that is needed for that. Bullying can't be blamed on devices, just on poorly educated victims.
First, if a device cannot do the things you mention, what's the point of it having internet access? Seriously: what can you actually do with it? What real world, specific use case/scenario are you talking about?
Second: you are talking just of classroom time. I am talking of the whole life of a kid who's given unrestricted access to the internet, which is what any personal device with real internet access is. After school, if a kid who was given unrestricted personal internet access is bullied via the internet I don't blame the device, I blame the parents: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/honestly-the-problem-with-children
This said, I have a serious feeling that we're talking of two totally different things, and I honestly can't figure out what yours is
there’s a reason for the tsunami of children experiencing gender dysphoria among other mental health issues. We know these tech companies specifically program the algorithms to further entrap these children into all these rabbit holes. Sadly, few parents have the discipline to push back and either deny or limit access. At least they should experience a few hours away from this contagion of poison.
I would say it is twofold. Part of it being social media, but also part of it being the education system. Anchoring kids from an early age to the perspective that there is a cornucopia of sexual and gender identities will obviously results in a higher adoption of those identities. It doesn't seem likely that elementary students are choosing their preferred pronouns off social media.
That being said, social media is definitely doing its fair share. LGBTQ+ identification is 4.5% for Gen X and 24.1% for high school students, with the majority of LGBTQ+ youth coming out younger (pre-15) than ever before.
I was thrilled when my daughter's middle school banned cell phones for this school year...then they purchased every student a laptop and it's almost worse. They require the students to pull them out for every class and they have full internet access. They expect all homework to be done on it. So now she's just looking at a screen all day. They even started using them in her choir class! At least last year my daughter was just the "only" kid without a cell phone.
Phones are definitely a big distraction in schools but the amount of technology being used for "educational" purposes is a huge part of the problem as well. Since many schools have moved to 1:1 model, kids are spending way more time staring at screens during the day and their attention is constantly being diverted to other non-educational sites. Plus, the research that all this edtech supports learning is very weak, and there is even more evidence it causes harm. I am hopeful that once phones are removed from classrooms, attention will turn to the excessive tech being used in schools! Check out the article I wrote on this for Public https://www.public.news/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind
I would say that it is more on the fault of implementation. I agree that it is far from a panacea, but it has its uses for sure when it comes to areas like computer science or digital design. As you point out, digital learning is not optimal in many circumstances, I shudder to think of a literature class where teachers and students alike are all reading off of their screens. The difficulty with this situation is that the burden of determining how to implement edtech has been left to already overwhelmed schools whose current staff obviously don't have the appropriate skillset to navigate it.
As an educator, the presence of phones in school is a genuine worry, for all of the reasons described above. However, there is much more to the story than the presence of phones at school: students grow up saturated in unregulated media content, and this leads to an inescapable culture that is, in so many, ways hostile to personal and social well-being.
Locking phones up is good, but the culture infuses school nonetheless.
What we need is to allow children and adolescents to enjoy their lives free of smartphones and social media until they are developmentally ready for them. At the same time, we also need social media, games and other apps to become far less aggressive in the way they target us and our personal data.
Parents need to be supported in this, by each other, and by appropriate legislation.
Yes sea change is needed at multiple levels, but I think would accede that regulating phones in the classroom is the easiest and quickest target to reach, with its positive effects being more than just placebo.
100%. We've built a web where we expect everything to be free, and so it is paid for through advertising. The algorithms serve up content prioritise advertising revenue, and the result is mass manipulation of human behaviour in order to grab our attention.
We banned phones after reading the research. We are excited to begin the school year on a phone free campus with a renewed spirit of learning! They may struggle at first without the constant dose of dopamine, but fingers crossed some work will get done in study hall now!
From talking to many families in my medical practice, I fear that lots of parents don't have enough trust in schools to support universal phone bans. Many of the parents of patients I care for want to be able to get in touch with their kids throughout the day -- they fear that schools won't handle illness, or bullying, or other emergencies effectively.
We have to make schools trustworthy institutions if we are going to ask families to give up their ability to communicate with their kids during the school day.
(And to be clear -- I am 100% in favor of phone-free schools!)
Lack of trust in educational institutions is a problem for sure, and not an undeserved one, but this is also about parents building trust with their own kids. This need for constant communication during the school day is beneficial to nobody. Having faith that the school is adequately meeting your child's needs is one thing, but surely parents can afford to extend the leash during school hours, no?
I was talking about this very issue with my 13 year old. He only just got a very locked down phone and it's on school mode all day in his locker. I was telling him about kids face timing with their parents in the hallway or texting with them in class. He said he can handle himself at school and doesn't need to talk to me. I suppose some might feel hurt by that comment but I felt really proud of him.
A trusting relationship also requires time to build and if parents can't even develop the basic ability to let their kids get through the school day, it will take much longer to build the trust to do other fundamental tasks (i.e. being trusted to drive on their own). I'm sure you'd be, naturally, worried if started asking to do certain other things unsupervised, but you're at least willing to secede some space, a lot more than other parents.
I think people often forget that Millennials were the first generation to come online, and that perhaps some of the concern that was voiced over a decade ago was valid as some of those issues seemed to persist, as reflected through their parenting habits. The popularity of this arkangel-esque approach to parenting is not healthy.
The details of the implementation of a school phone ban make a huge difference. I work as a substitute teacher for several different school districts in my area, primarily at the high school level. All of these districts claim to have an "off and away" cellphone policy during class time with some exceptions for using phones for schoolwork or after completion of classwork, but students are allowed constant physical possession of their phones. In practice what I see is constant distraction during class time. The temptation is too great and there is persistent sneaking of texting, game apps, YouTube etc during class time. (Often students don't even bother to be sneaky about their phone use.) Even when I am present during transition periods and sitting in the back of the room observing the regular classroom teachers, there is always a large portion of the class using their phones. This holds true even for advance placement classes as well, where you might expect the best results.
That is ideally when you would want a more dynamic policy, such as temporarily confiscating phones from students who deviate from the policy. The ideal outcome is for students to regulate themselves, but getting there might require additional vigilance from educators.
Ban baby Ban! These parents and their, “I need to communicate with my child….” CALL THE SCHOOL they will get your child for you. Probably the weakest argument for allowing phones in school that I’ve ever heard.
I strongly believe there are many benefits in banning these phones but the practical implementation might be harder than we think. Considering school shootings, theft, and helicopter parents all holding a lot of weight.
I sent my son to a private all boys school (faith based Catholic but an Independent school...not Archdiocese). YES, there was a cell phone ban and it was written in the contract that parents signed! From 8:30-3:30 the phone had to be in their pocket and turned off. During lunch or a study hall, they were allowed to go outside and use their phone if they wanted (most didn't....they liked being with friends!). Before the 1st bell and after school hrs, they were allowed to use it in the hallways. If the rules were broken, the phone was confiscated and the parents were called to come in for a conference and to retrieve the phone and the student was assessed 6 days of after school detention (which means that 1 was Saturday school....remember the Breakfast Club?). All it took was 1 brave/stupid boy to screw up/buck the system and made to be the example and it usually didn't happen again! No bullying at school, plenty of social interaction and laughter. Best policy ever!
In Finland we have a wide spread debate about phones. Some politicians have even mentioned, that having a phone available at all times is a Constitutional right. We do also have digital learning environments and I used to use phones’ cam in science class, which was helpful at some tasks.
A single argument for phones, that I personally wonder most is - parents/students needs to contact student/parent during the school day. Why? If parents really wants schools do their job in parenting, why do parents need to contact their children or vice versa. Why?
To me, the strongest case for banning phones is simple - there's virtually zero upside to kids having them throughout the school day. So even if the positive effect is small, there's no downside, so go with it.
With astonishing myopia, we are still arguing over whether the mental health of our children hinges on their use—or not-use—of phones. Phones. And yet we parents bring them into the world, and we teach them their perspective of the world in infancy and very early childhood, long before their phone use. When will we have the courage to face our responsibilities as parents? When will we acknowledge that only we could have the primary responsibility for their mental health?
But instead we blame every other potential influence in our children’s lives. We have fallen before the altar of verifiable data while ignoring the unmeasurable but paramount effects of what all kids need most. They need to feel loved. The Beatles knew that—as did Gandhi, Jesus, and Ariel Sharon, to name a few—but we can’t even define the kind of love our children need. For heaven’s sake, we talk about loving chocolate and each other in the same sentence. Our children need love that is unconditional, the kind we don’t have to earn, the kind with no taint of disappointment or irritation—utterly unknown to most of us. All of these truly terrible problems with our children are united by one thread—us, the parents, and our inability to give this unconditional love to our kids. We didn’t get it ourselves. Remember, this is love without disappointment or anger.
The mental health of our children is simpler than we want to believe. Children without unconditional love are unavoidably in pain, and then we see their depression and suicides. We see them seeking solace in devices, isolation, addictions, and more. Will we finally address the root cause of these downstream problems we can all see? The practical solutions are already thoroughly described in the free websites RealLoveParents.com and RealLove.com.
Yes, they should---smartphones at any rate. Parents are entitled to make their own parenting decisions, but when those decisions make it impossible for me to make mine in the context of a public school, then I have a problem with them. We are not allowing our kids to have smart phones until they are old enough to sign the contracts and pay for themselves. But other people's kids bring smartphones to school, they view inappropriate content on them and show that content to the other children, including my own. The smartphones also distrupt and distract everyone, interfering with my child's right to a quality education. It's not difficult calculus, really. Schools frequently don't allow kids to bring adult content in other forms to school and they often don't allow toys (electronic or otherwise), usually taking these things away when teachers see them. Importantly, there's also zero upside to smartphones and no necessity---people can buy their kids dumb phones if they insist on constant access to direct communication with them.
Agree. My husband was commenting yesterday that it kids are not permitted to bring Pokémon cards to school because of the problems and distractions. But a phone can be in their backpack? Ridiculous.
I'd be happier with Pokemon cards by far. At least the game requires face-to-face interaction, contains no porn, no obvious indications of ideological force-feeding by one side of a contentious issue or other, and it makes them think a bit (despite the randomness). If only that were the big distraction at schools.
Sorry, typo... "our kids"
What about flip phones with Internet access?
What would that solve? "Internet access" is exactly where the problems come through. It would be almost identical to giving a kid a dumb phone plus an internet-enabled laptop or tablet.
They are clearly not smart phones. Do you think they are such?
that depends on what you exactly mean by "smartphone and "flip phone with internet access", or more exactly on how you distinguish one from the other. It doesn't matter what an object is or how it's called. If you give a kid anything that has internet access and enough support to install even just whatsapp, like e.g. a Nokia model whose name now escapes me, she'll still be exposed to bullying, losing sleep etc... almost as much as if she had the latest iPhone
You can give Internet access on any kind of device that you wish.
If that device has a tiny screen, like my flip phone does, you won't be able to see much clearly thereupon. You also won't be able to plug in earbuds to listen to stereo sound, so Youtube is an impossibility, along with the majority of social media websites. Apps cannot be installed on my flip phone.
If you give a bored child something that can break the boredom, it doesn't matter how the boredom gets broken. Even a challenged child will be able to fine a way to break the boredom. The trick is to reduce their options to things that are keyed to the classroom they are in, and an intranet is all that is needed for that. Bullying can't be blamed on devices, just on poorly educated victims.
First, if a device cannot do the things you mention, what's the point of it having internet access? Seriously: what can you actually do with it? What real world, specific use case/scenario are you talking about?
Second: you are talking just of classroom time. I am talking of the whole life of a kid who's given unrestricted access to the internet, which is what any personal device with real internet access is. After school, if a kid who was given unrestricted personal internet access is bullied via the internet I don't blame the device, I blame the parents: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/honestly-the-problem-with-children
This said, I have a serious feeling that we're talking of two totally different things, and I honestly can't figure out what yours is
there’s a reason for the tsunami of children experiencing gender dysphoria among other mental health issues. We know these tech companies specifically program the algorithms to further entrap these children into all these rabbit holes. Sadly, few parents have the discipline to push back and either deny or limit access. At least they should experience a few hours away from this contagion of poison.
I would say it is twofold. Part of it being social media, but also part of it being the education system. Anchoring kids from an early age to the perspective that there is a cornucopia of sexual and gender identities will obviously results in a higher adoption of those identities. It doesn't seem likely that elementary students are choosing their preferred pronouns off social media.
That being said, social media is definitely doing its fair share. LGBTQ+ identification is 4.5% for Gen X and 24.1% for high school students, with the majority of LGBTQ+ youth coming out younger (pre-15) than ever before.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/647636/lgbtq-adults-coming-younger-ages-past.aspx
I don't see how phone bans in schools would move the needle on this issue at all. You'd probably get less kids recording their teachers though.
Weak minded adults do more to entrap children's minds than any electronic device could.
I was thrilled when my daughter's middle school banned cell phones for this school year...then they purchased every student a laptop and it's almost worse. They require the students to pull them out for every class and they have full internet access. They expect all homework to be done on it. So now she's just looking at a screen all day. They even started using them in her choir class! At least last year my daughter was just the "only" kid without a cell phone.
Phones are definitely a big distraction in schools but the amount of technology being used for "educational" purposes is a huge part of the problem as well. Since many schools have moved to 1:1 model, kids are spending way more time staring at screens during the day and their attention is constantly being diverted to other non-educational sites. Plus, the research that all this edtech supports learning is very weak, and there is even more evidence it causes harm. I am hopeful that once phones are removed from classrooms, attention will turn to the excessive tech being used in schools! Check out the article I wrote on this for Public https://www.public.news/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind
I would say that it is more on the fault of implementation. I agree that it is far from a panacea, but it has its uses for sure when it comes to areas like computer science or digital design. As you point out, digital learning is not optimal in many circumstances, I shudder to think of a literature class where teachers and students alike are all reading off of their screens. The difficulty with this situation is that the burden of determining how to implement edtech has been left to already overwhelmed schools whose current staff obviously don't have the appropriate skillset to navigate it.
Their having full Internet access is an indication that the IT department is staffed with fools.
As an educator, the presence of phones in school is a genuine worry, for all of the reasons described above. However, there is much more to the story than the presence of phones at school: students grow up saturated in unregulated media content, and this leads to an inescapable culture that is, in so many, ways hostile to personal and social well-being.
Locking phones up is good, but the culture infuses school nonetheless.
What we need is to allow children and adolescents to enjoy their lives free of smartphones and social media until they are developmentally ready for them. At the same time, we also need social media, games and other apps to become far less aggressive in the way they target us and our personal data.
Parents need to be supported in this, by each other, and by appropriate legislation.
Agree that much of the social media culture that kids gravitate towards is toxic and that banning phones will not significantly shift that culture.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240712101812/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/06/technology/tiktok-fake-teachers-pennsylvania.html
Horror stories like these shouldn't exist.
Yes sea change is needed at multiple levels, but I think would accede that regulating phones in the classroom is the easiest and quickest target to reach, with its positive effects being more than just placebo.
For the hundredth time: IT'S THE ALGORITHMS!
100%. We've built a web where we expect everything to be free, and so it is paid for through advertising. The algorithms serve up content prioritise advertising revenue, and the result is mass manipulation of human behaviour in order to grab our attention.
We banned phones after reading the research. We are excited to begin the school year on a phone free campus with a renewed spirit of learning! They may struggle at first without the constant dose of dopamine, but fingers crossed some work will get done in study hall now!
Schools themselves should be banned.
Unnecessary. Redundant. Dangerous to the community.
Parent wants children to learn this or that, DIY.
See Autobiography of JS Mill
Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing by Alexander Sutherland Neill would be specifically more useful.
From talking to many families in my medical practice, I fear that lots of parents don't have enough trust in schools to support universal phone bans. Many of the parents of patients I care for want to be able to get in touch with their kids throughout the day -- they fear that schools won't handle illness, or bullying, or other emergencies effectively.
We have to make schools trustworthy institutions if we are going to ask families to give up their ability to communicate with their kids during the school day.
(And to be clear -- I am 100% in favor of phone-free schools!)
Lack of trust in educational institutions is a problem for sure, and not an undeserved one, but this is also about parents building trust with their own kids. This need for constant communication during the school day is beneficial to nobody. Having faith that the school is adequately meeting your child's needs is one thing, but surely parents can afford to extend the leash during school hours, no?
I was talking about this very issue with my 13 year old. He only just got a very locked down phone and it's on school mode all day in his locker. I was telling him about kids face timing with their parents in the hallway or texting with them in class. He said he can handle himself at school and doesn't need to talk to me. I suppose some might feel hurt by that comment but I felt really proud of him.
A trusting relationship also requires time to build and if parents can't even develop the basic ability to let their kids get through the school day, it will take much longer to build the trust to do other fundamental tasks (i.e. being trusted to drive on their own). I'm sure you'd be, naturally, worried if started asking to do certain other things unsupervised, but you're at least willing to secede some space, a lot more than other parents.
I think people often forget that Millennials were the first generation to come online, and that perhaps some of the concern that was voiced over a decade ago was valid as some of those issues seemed to persist, as reflected through their parenting habits. The popularity of this arkangel-esque approach to parenting is not healthy.
We would be better off without public day prisons for our children's indoctrination.
No data required to allow phones in schools, but we require a mountain of data to ban them.
The details of the implementation of a school phone ban make a huge difference. I work as a substitute teacher for several different school districts in my area, primarily at the high school level. All of these districts claim to have an "off and away" cellphone policy during class time with some exceptions for using phones for schoolwork or after completion of classwork, but students are allowed constant physical possession of their phones. In practice what I see is constant distraction during class time. The temptation is too great and there is persistent sneaking of texting, game apps, YouTube etc during class time. (Often students don't even bother to be sneaky about their phone use.) Even when I am present during transition periods and sitting in the back of the room observing the regular classroom teachers, there is always a large portion of the class using their phones. This holds true even for advance placement classes as well, where you might expect the best results.
That is ideally when you would want a more dynamic policy, such as temporarily confiscating phones from students who deviate from the policy. The ideal outcome is for students to regulate themselves, but getting there might require additional vigilance from educators.
Ban baby Ban! These parents and their, “I need to communicate with my child….” CALL THE SCHOOL they will get your child for you. Probably the weakest argument for allowing phones in school that I’ve ever heard.
I strongly believe there are many benefits in banning these phones but the practical implementation might be harder than we think. Considering school shootings, theft, and helicopter parents all holding a lot of weight.
I sent my son to a private all boys school (faith based Catholic but an Independent school...not Archdiocese). YES, there was a cell phone ban and it was written in the contract that parents signed! From 8:30-3:30 the phone had to be in their pocket and turned off. During lunch or a study hall, they were allowed to go outside and use their phone if they wanted (most didn't....they liked being with friends!). Before the 1st bell and after school hrs, they were allowed to use it in the hallways. If the rules were broken, the phone was confiscated and the parents were called to come in for a conference and to retrieve the phone and the student was assessed 6 days of after school detention (which means that 1 was Saturday school....remember the Breakfast Club?). All it took was 1 brave/stupid boy to screw up/buck the system and made to be the example and it usually didn't happen again! No bullying at school, plenty of social interaction and laughter. Best policy ever!
In Finland we have a wide spread debate about phones. Some politicians have even mentioned, that having a phone available at all times is a Constitutional right. We do also have digital learning environments and I used to use phones’ cam in science class, which was helpful at some tasks.
A single argument for phones, that I personally wonder most is - parents/students needs to contact student/parent during the school day. Why? If parents really wants schools do their job in parenting, why do parents need to contact their children or vice versa. Why?
To me, the strongest case for banning phones is simple - there's virtually zero upside to kids having them throughout the school day. So even if the positive effect is small, there's no downside, so go with it.
With astonishing myopia, we are still arguing over whether the mental health of our children hinges on their use—or not-use—of phones. Phones. And yet we parents bring them into the world, and we teach them their perspective of the world in infancy and very early childhood, long before their phone use. When will we have the courage to face our responsibilities as parents? When will we acknowledge that only we could have the primary responsibility for their mental health?
But instead we blame every other potential influence in our children’s lives. We have fallen before the altar of verifiable data while ignoring the unmeasurable but paramount effects of what all kids need most. They need to feel loved. The Beatles knew that—as did Gandhi, Jesus, and Ariel Sharon, to name a few—but we can’t even define the kind of love our children need. For heaven’s sake, we talk about loving chocolate and each other in the same sentence. Our children need love that is unconditional, the kind we don’t have to earn, the kind with no taint of disappointment or irritation—utterly unknown to most of us. All of these truly terrible problems with our children are united by one thread—us, the parents, and our inability to give this unconditional love to our kids. We didn’t get it ourselves. Remember, this is love without disappointment or anger.
The mental health of our children is simpler than we want to believe. Children without unconditional love are unavoidably in pain, and then we see their depression and suicides. We see them seeking solace in devices, isolation, addictions, and more. Will we finally address the root cause of these downstream problems we can all see? The practical solutions are already thoroughly described in the free websites RealLoveParents.com and RealLove.com.
Absolutely. One day we will look back on these days like we do now to the days when people could smoke on airplanes.