Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/technology/school-phone-bans-indiana-louisiana.html
https://archive.ph/KSXxg
(Paywall free)
Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/technology/school-phone-bans-indiana-louisiana.html
https://archive.ph/KSXxg
(Paywall free)
Why did they allow them in?
I remember we weren’t allowed to and our phones weren’t even as capable when they were “dumb”.
Fucking pagers were going to end teen life, shortly after Beavis and Butthead were going to ruin America’s youth. Then actual horrific data from teen phone use shows up and nothing happens because the Christian right is too busy focusing on people’s junk and banning books to raise hell about phones
Right? I remember if you got caught messing with it or it even making noise during class, the teacher took it and you picked it up from the office at the end of the day.
Overly concerned parents want their kid to always carry a phone/tracking device.
I’m sure Life360 parents played a not-so-small part in that decision.
Also school shootings might play a factor.
The biggest contributing factor was 9/11. My school had 3 pay phones for 1600 students. When 9/11 happened it was chaos. Tons of teachers were letting students use their cell phones (of they had one) so kids could call their parents, and no me had a problem with anyone that had a phone pulling it out of their bag to use it. It felt like almost overnight half the school had a new cell phone that no teacher cared about.
School shootings have just been a continuation of the fact that parents want to know their kids are okay at any given moment.
I’m just guessing that stories of kids trapped in classrooms during school shootings had something to do with it.
But that is purely a guess.
It’s a tough choice, right? Do we want our kids to be independent and capable during emergencies or do we want them tightly controlled and incommunicado at their desks?