I wonder what the results would have looked like if they added questions to see the difference in acceptance between banning smartphones vs banning dumb phones.
It’s twice the same survey no ?
My position on this is really weird because I’m in support of laptops being in classrooms for educational uses. However, I’m against cell phones being in classroom.
That being said, as someone who grew up in a school system that didn’t allow the parent to communicate with their child or a teenager, meaning that they couldn’t call the school to have them relay a message, I am firmly against a straight ban period on school grounds. I was given a phone because my parents’ work schedule was very fluid and could change within an hour or two. And on more than a handful of occasions, my mom would call the school and be like, hey, you need to relay the message to get on a different bus because there’s no one going to be home, And they just wouldn’t relay it. It also helped if I chose to go to a friends house after school
I’m also disliking how they skewed the results. If you read the actual study, you’ll see that they merged the kind of agree strongly agree and the kind of disagree strongly disagree categories to make it a binary choice, but then chose to omit the six percent of the people who said they didn’t care or had no strong opinion.
they also removed they also removed any results where the person chose the first option or the last option on every question. And I dislike any type of automated data sanitation method like that, because while they did randomize the first and fourth answer, every time, there’s always the possibility that someone legitimately answered everything as either the first or last answer. My own vote could be stated that since I strongly agree that the cell phone shouldn’t be in the classroom, but strongly disagree that it should be straight banned. So if question one and question two had the polarity of question one and question 2 flipped, where one was strongly agree and one was strongly disagree, it’s entirely possible I would have been removed from the survey as a fraudulent result.
edit: removed couple sentences that drifted from topic some
I think this is a tough one to weigh in on depending where you come from. If I lived somewhere where the news talked about school shootings a lot, I might want my child to have a phone.
Go after the companies making addictive applications instead.
When I was a kid in school, you had to go to the office to use the phone.
Same, and I feel like that should be the only phone available. Us older millennials didn’t have phones, these kids don’t need them either during school. Now I’m not against them used at lunch time or breaks, that’s there time
My school at least still had a payphone near the cafeteria we only got rid of in 2011.
Just make them leave it off. Anyone caught using a phone gets it taken away the rest of the day.
That’s what we did with anything that was distracting when I was growing up. You can have it on you, but if they see you using it. It goes into the principal’s office until EOD.
Yeah the issue with this is that it becomes a major pain to enforce.
Tones of schools have no phone policies but no one enforces it.
Students won’t give them up and parents get upset because they can’t contact little Timmy or because his 1500 iPhone is in someone’s desk.
You don’t necessarily need to take it away, there are other avenues of punishment. Detention, Saturday school, no extra-curricular participation, suspension, etc. I was in high school right as dumb cell phones started to become a thing and those were our punishments if we were caught with phones out. We were allowed to have them, but they had to be either off or on silent, and in our bags (same as CD/MP3 players.) We were allowed to have them out to check them only during lunch and before and after school, or if we had to make a call, in the main office. I completely agree that kids shouldn’t be using phones AT ALL during class time, but there’s ways to allow them to exist and punish inappropriate usage that doesn’t require teachers taking them. Teachers shouldn’t be taking phones, that’s a liability risk and not worth the effort.
How would it help for children to have phones during a school shooting? Everyone on the staff already has one.
For real. What are they gonna do if their kid specifically calls them directly? Go all Rambo on the shooter?
Go after the companies
Sir this is a Merica.
As a mom of two in a country where school shootings do happen far more frequently than anywhere else in the world, the US, I fully support completely banning phones from schools. The benefit to my kids education overall far outweighs the minuscule chance something would happen where they need their phones or a shooting took place. I say this also as a former American student who’s school did go on lock down a few times for active shooters in the area, like the time a local bank got robbed or when they found a “kill list” some kid made. It just doesn’t make sense to me to degrade education across the board in the very very off chance my kid, or even myself, was at the location of a school shooting.
Are you suggesting a phone would stop the shooting?
I was thinking about a shooting that happened in Norway. Some of the children called their parents. It didn’t stop anything horrible from happening, but they left the world knowing they were loved.
When I was in highschool I had an app to help calm me (recommended by my therapist) because I had such severe anxiety problems. I know there are things you can do without an app but it was helpful when I was panicking so much I could hardly think. I don’t think a blanket ban is appropriate. Phones aren’t inherently bad and it really depends on how they are being used. It makes more sense to revoke phone privileges from individual students if they can’t use them properly.
Devil’s advocate take: was the phone app the only way to ease your anxiety, or was it just an option that was recommended due to the trend of trying to have our phone do everything?
Digital devices will always be a potential distraction, even with just simple calling and messaging. What amazes me most though, is how far we’ll stretch to avoid regulating the actual actors causing the most harm (social media).
Bring back dumb phones
Landlines
let the mobileks get dumber so the content creators can get smarter
You would need to make them dumber/more controlled. A dumb phone with unlimited texting is still going to be a distraction.
Maybe spamming children should be illegal
I’m talking about kids texting each other.
Witch-hunting is a historical example of mass behavior potentially fueled by moral panic. The current trend towards banning phone use in schools is another.
as a parent, I would say what matters is geo-location and text to coordinate pick-up or plans. there is no need for younger kids to have a full fledged phone if one could be developed that serves those functions. I’m thinking 90s flip phones with GPS. It really sounds like a gold mine for some company to supply these limited devices given the market for them.
No kid wants that.
Ban the phones and make the kids do as we always did. Hide it and use it strategically when the teacher couldn’t see.
Someone is downvoting everything but I agree. I try and keep my helicopter parent impulses under control, but it is nice to know exactly where my kids are. My son (12) has a locked down old iPhone and Apple makes it pretty easy to make it practically a dumb phone. We literally have it set up so that he has to ask for permission before using any apps, with the exception of calling and messaging. (Even messaging is iffy; we want to be able to text him but it opens up texting with friends.) He doesn’t need it at school so he doesn’t bring it, but as he gets older, I’m sure it’ll start to go with him and I’m not upset about it. If he wants to go somewhere with a friend right after school instead of going straight home, it’s fine with me as long as I know about it. Without a phone, it’d be hard for him to make such plans on the fly, and let’s just say that planning ahead isn’t my ADHD-kid’s strong suit (yet—we’re working on it). As long as the expectation is set that he doesn’t use it during school, I think that’s okay; it can just live in his backpack until school is over.
Someone is downvoting everything
Indeed - three top level posts got downvotes from the same two accounts (with the second likely being an alt) within a minute.
I just talk to my kids and it works just fine
Talk? Like, vocally? Eww, so old school.
There are options for that. Like Gabb phones and such. No Internet or social media mostly just talk, text, and geolocation.
I’m completely ignorant of “Gabb” phones. I’ll have to investigate. Also, I should probably add that while I’m a parent my kids are now grown so my opinions on this are dated. They all have full fledged smartphones at this point… and jobs… and lives. LOL
The logic is stupid. There are adults that are just as addicted to social media and the Internet as much as any kid would be. What changes once they reach 18?
more ranting
The real issue isn’t being tackled or solved. This is yet another thing where we’re trying to solve the symptom but not the cause. The real issue is that the software or the platforms don’t take into consideration, by design, the well-being of the user.
We’re being forced to do what these stupid corporations like Meta, Google, Reddit, OpenAI et al aren’t doing already but should actually be doing. They don’t give AF because their whole objective is to make sure you are addicted and they can then harvest your data, feed you scams, etc.
This is pretty much like how the big corporations push the blame on the consumer for wasting plastic even though it’s the fucking corps choosing to sell their products that way in the fist place.
If software was designed with a kill-switch that could enforce better habits, this all wouldn’t be necessary. All we’re doing is delaying the inevitable and forcing them to seek alternatives that will be abused in the same manor social media or the Internet would be.
Why the fuck do they still sell cigarettes despite everybody knowing full well that it causes severe health issues?!
Can’t make this shit up!!!
P.S. - If the schools wish to put in place this kind of ban, then they have the authority to do so. Fine. That doesn’t fix the broken education system. Yes, it is broken.
I mean, I would vastly prefer your solution, but it’s much more difficult to step in and police every social media company such that they aren’t working against the user. This is basically a band aid, but a band aid is better than nothing imo
I mean I’d rather have my kid have a better education over all if they’re addicted to their phones or not.
I agree. Leave them at home. The safety argument is bullshit.
Nope. As a dad I want to be able to reach my kid when need to and I want her to be able to do the same
That’s been possible since way before cell phones were invented. Call the school and have them give your kid a message. School children on their phones all day long is why your kids can’t read, do math, or pay attention to anything longer than 5 minutes. Also, cyber bullying and negative social media influences are brutal and are contributing to rising suicidal ideation and attempts.
Is my kid on her phone more than I’d like? Yes. But she’s a straight A student. Doesn’t change the fact I want us to be able to contact each other should an emergency arise
You can. You call the school. That’s what people did before schools started allowing phones everywhere.
If there is an emergency, you’ll need to call them anyway. No school is just gonna let your kid leave because the kid says it’s okay.
Sincerely, a fellow dad
Call the school
I know I’d just bring it in my bag with it turned off and not take it out until class is over.
There are “no internet” phones that are just talk and geolocation and nothing else.
Illinois just banned phones in school. Idk if that’s leave in lockers or out of class.
Leave in lockers. The law says teachers can confiscate them for class if out and then give them back at the end of class.
