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Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?
(www.aljazeera.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Technology
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In general; I don't think banning them will help. By all means; confiscate phones which do not get put away during class and return them after class. Give teachers and administrators the authority to do this.
Offer appropriate places to securely store and charge phones in each classroom until the teacher releases them. These places remain "locked" or "inaccessible" until class is over.
Do this from a young age and teach the children how to have moderation through this method.
I do not believe children should be deprived of their devices before and after school. If a student is found to be bullying other kids or students online; then charges can be filed in a school-based court and a Judge can consider ordering the bullying kids to have limited or no access to any smart device unsupervised. This puts the burden on the parents to manage any kids who are misusing the tech outside of school. Similarly the troublemakers can be transferred to other schools.
Students who are being bullied online can simply report this to the teachers or admins and get relief from their tormentors. If they can't also learn how to get the adults involved in actually troublesome situations; that's also a problem that needs addressing.
I would encourage students to be open with their parents and teachers about things and definitely also focus on things like social media literacy and how to navigate through tricky situations as well.
Various apps and software tools could be used to manage a student's phone (During school hours) as well; if and only if needed. They could make this mandatory; but it would only be restrictive on phones of students who misuse their phones; and thus are identified as needing 'management'. This would ideally only enforce appropriate usage times and optionally; iff the student is being penalized for bullying or misusing; provide a way to disable various apps and browsers while preventing new ones from being installed without parent or teacher consent.
TL;DR: If the kid follows the rules; their phone isn't going to be locked down. If they don't; they get the lock-down experience while the adults ensure the kid is educated as needed.
Even if that sounds dystopian; it's also a way to integrate phones into the school experience which addresses all the issues...and ensures the adults in charge of the students has ample opportunity to educate the kids about how to use their phones correctly...and intervene with a student's usage if needed while still allowing them to have phones for emergency and necessary use.
You seem to care about this, but just FYI that it's well studied at this point that having a smart phone at all during school hours is a problem.
It's not about cyber bullying. Having a smart phone in their pocket is damaging. Children should have dumb phones exclusively until age 16.
Outside of class time sounds good, but it really means that students become fixated on checking all their notifications between classes. This is an experience blocker. Instead of engaging with their peers or teachers, they're screen zombies caught in addictive dark patterns, generating anxiety constantly all day.
I've plugged it already in this thread, but The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt explains this really well , and he brings receipts.
There is not enough scientific evidence of this; and oftentimes studies of this nature are not randomized and controlled; but instead rely on anecdotes and self-reporting by parents.
If you read; you would know I already advocate for the students being unable to use their phone during school hours. Their phones would remain locked up; much like the article mentions; for the entire school-day.
The only thing I advocate for is for them to have a phone in general so that they have it for when they need it; either in case of emergency or otherwise. Yes; that does mean they have access to it before the schoolday begins and after the final bell rings. That's intended.
I do believe it is possible to raise children to resist the addiction; but it has to start early.
As for inflicting a 'dumbphone' on a child; I do think that's not necessary all the time. it depends on the child and is definitely one way a parent can control a child's screen time.
Smart phones in pockets being a problem is supported by robust psychology research. People do the worst at tasks when phones are on the desk in front of them, worse when phones are in their pockets, and best when phones are left in another room even if the devices are turned off, in all cases. It's even worse if phones are on even without any sort of notification, like vibration. (And, obviously, notifications make things increasingly terrible.)
The research is not at all unclear or anecdotal; it is very strong. Phones are damaging to attention, task completion, and learning. This is established; the only disagreement is to the degree of the effect.
Re: phones in "class", I think we're misunderstanding each other due to terminology. Here, "a class" means a single instruction period. I thought you were for banning use during instruction time, but against phones being fully banned at school, but if you mean "class" to be the entire time from first bell to last bell, then we're in agreement. No smart phones at all during school hours would be a good step.
Hopefully, that might also make parents more aware of the damage smart phones are causing and support a societal move away from giving youth addiction machines.
All research based on smartphones is based on anecdotal evidence.
This is false. There is minimal acceptable evidence that a phone that is online, in a pocket or purse, in a complete silence mode configuration, with no vibration or sound, affects anyone negatively.
All time spent at any K-12 school institution or local country equivalent; including transition time; is considered instructional time. At least it was by any school principal I've ever spoken to, many of whom were holders of American PhDs in education. Laws in all 50 states reflect this typically.
I think children must be taught how to self-regulate with phones for sure. Much like anything and everything; children must be taught how. I personally never struggled with this because all campuses in my home town would confiscate it at least until End of Day. Sometimes they'd attempt to hold the device longer; but that just resulted in parents going to the police and them being forced to return the item. They'd sometimes hold the item until your parent retrieved it however; and that was allowed as long as they returned it the moment the parent requested it. So you really couldn't rely on parents retrieving it too many times.
I did however get the entire district policy hard limited from "on school grounds" to "In building, from bell to bell" because of the aforementioned involvement of police.
Similarly I will point out we had devices like Game Boys and other portable consoles growing up in the 90s.
You're missing the point entirely, I think.
If you want to learn about the research, Jonathan Haidt's book includes links to studies on the effects of cell phones. I don't have time to find the sources for you right now, but you can look there if you want to learn more.
Random book, even one mentioned in the article, along with anecdotes by the author, lists more and better studies than the 1,317 studies scoped by the Queensland University of Technology? Doubt.
The actual analysis itself makes it clear that the research specifically on cell phone bans is lacking. In particular, of the 1317 studies, only 22 were relevant, more than half of which were Master Degree research projects, not peer-reviewed studies. It's fair that the evidence for cell phone bans in schools is inconclusive, but that's because there isn't enough quality reach yet to draw conclusions.
I was actually referring above to studies on cell phones in general for task success, non-specific to schools.