this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy? This happens everytime a new technology becomes popular and schools don't know how to regulate it they do this.
The downside is, a fair few student will have their phones confiscated by the school. But it won't dissuade them from bringing them in. You make them better at hiding them instead of creating tools and protocols to enforce for when they can and can't use them.
The crazy thing is, this should be about schools not wanting to be liable for or responsible for these pieces of tech. But Everytime I see legislation like this, it's to do with "children's mental health", or these devices being a distraction.
Model it. Nobody should be allowed to have a phone in schools by this metric. No phones for students? No phones for teachers and administration.
Yeah I think the adverse effect of handing an iPhone to a 10 year old in Atlanta, when that teen is still highly impressionable unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet is far worse than handing a kid a Gameboy on which they can only game, or a Walkman on which the worst thing they can do is listen to Cardi B.
And the fault of the parent who is the only one who can do anything about that child having unrestricted access to the internet of a phone. This is adding to the responsibilities and liabilities of the schools without solving the problem in a meaningful way and this is exactly what I'm being critical of in my statement.
If nobody has a phone you can implement other technologies to alarm if such a device is brought into the property etc. You can actually jam cell phone use in the area too. There's solutions that would mitigate a school having to take on hundreds of confiscated $1000 phones which would be a huge liability and make them a target.
You compared smartphones to previous tech such as Walkmans, and I explained how they’re nowhere near the same in the extreme case (unsupervised access). No school is gonna confiscate the phones as long as the kids listen. And the kids need to learn to listen to parents and teachers. Discipline is sorely missing in the new generation. Look at that series “adolescence “ to see the real effects of giving kids a smartphone.
And jamming is expensive and ineffective (you’ll end up jamming nearby devices not on school property too).
I compared it to previous tech because that tech was also considered a distraction and labeled with a similar brush and handled in a similar way to the way phones are likely handled today and it's important to understand and take into account what schools are likely already doing in order to facilitate learning and prevent such "distractions". This isn't about unsupervised access. This was never about unsupervised access. This is about the distraction that phones and other materials play in a child's ability to learn. And as that it stands to reason that A. Schools already have implemented protocols to deal with this situation when it arises. And B. That this law doesn't really do much to fix the problem, but does add additional liability because now regardless of whether or not the phone is being a distraction it must be confiscated and then held for a parent to pick up. Meaning that A. It must in essence remain in the same condition it was in when it was confiscated (and it won't because it would have to be charged at regular intervals and with new phones logged into occasionally to prevent media on the phone from being wiped). So this adds liability for the school. What protections does the school and school administration have under this law?
The effect of giving children smart phones is not going to be in any way mitigated by this law. This is not a ban on cell phones for children under the age of 18 full stop. It's a ban on children being allowed to bring cell phones to school.