Summary

Several states, including Alabama, Maryland, and New Hampshire, are introducing legislation to ban or restrict cellphones in schools.

The measures claim to reduce distractions and address concerns over teen mental health linked to heavy social media use.

Proponents argue such bans help students focus, but opponents, including parents, warn of safety and communication issues.

“If something were to happen in the school, my child should be able to have their cellphone to be able to call for help, to be able to call me,” said parent Jeara Underwood.

Experts emphasize teaching responsible tech use rather than imposing broad bans.

  • TimeSquirrel
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    381 day ago

    Experts emphasize teaching responsible tech use rather than imposing broad bans.

    This. Discipline the student for having it out during an inappropriate time. Not punish the group. Is that so hard?

    • @Pilferjinx
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      51 day ago

      I’d say yes. Teachers have very limited ways to deal with students. There’s no harm in banning phones during school hours, in fact, you could argue that it’s beneficial to the mental development of children to reduce phone times.

    • @gAlienLifeform
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      121 day ago

      When school staffing has one teacher per forty or so students? Yeah.

      That said, I still think these measures are stupid and punishing the group for society’s failure to fund and staff our schools appropriately, but I can understand why teachers often support them.

    • @credo
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      191 day ago

      There won’t be any mass shootings if kids can’t call to report them 🤷‍♂️

      • ElcaineVolta
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        71 day ago

        the “if we just stop testing, there won’t be any more cases” approach to public health, what a pleasure it is to exist in america.

  • @njm1314
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    61 day ago

    Shouldn’t this be a school district issue why does a state government need to get involved?

  • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown
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    281 day ago

    I was talking to a teacher over the holidays, and apparently some kids will have one or more dummy phones (fauxns?) to hand over if asked when they try to sneak their real phone into class.

  • Jessica
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    121 day ago

    “If something were to happen in the school, my child should be able to have their cellphone to be able to call for help, to be able to call me,” said parent Jeara Underwood.

    Exactly. My son keeps his phone on him, and I keep mine with me. I don’t care what the school or my workplace says, the phones stay with us. There was a hoax call to his school that said there was going to be a shooting. In the moment, we weren’t sure what was happening. Thankfully, it was a hoax, and he and I were able to keep in contact throughout.

    • @I_Has_A_Hat
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      41 day ago

      Ok? This isn’t banning having cell phones on you. It’s banning their use. Obviously if something were to happen, that rule kind of goes out the window.

  • @moshankey
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    181 day ago

    Have fun closing that little box.

    • ggppjj
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      51 day ago

      Your comment almost launched me into the third tirade in as many months about how the story of “schools putting in litter boxes” was nothing but anti-education nonsense that doesn’t take into account the fact that most school boards are made up of people who would never do anything like that in a million years just on cost alone, then I re-read lol.

  • @x00z
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    31 day ago

    Weird that some parents are against this. I live in a country where we have a ban and grades have been going up, there’s less problems in class, teachers are more relaxed again, kids have started playing again during recess and they are overall less chaotic.

    • @Fedizen
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      31 day ago

      Its almost like cell phones would be entirely negative if we didn’t need them to navigate

  • @banshee
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    1 day ago

    Out of curiosity, I searched for China’s approach and found that they banned children bringing phones to school without written parental consent. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55902778

    I’m still figuring out where I stand, but I’m not sure I disagree. School shooters have been linked to high social media use. I wonder if a ban could help at all in this regard.

    On a side note, I don’t really see how banning cell phones could be interpreted as punishment. If anything, it should help reduce apparent disparities and avoid punishment for inappropriate use

  • @[email protected]
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    1 day ago

    … to make the life of school bullies easier and empower the teachers that help the bullies.

  • Optional
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    -11 day ago

    Hey it only took us a couple of decades!

    Understanding media is going super well you guys.