We can all agree that alcohol isn’t bad by itself and that we can learn to use it safely (don’t drink too much, knowing when we had enough etc…). And yet we keep away alcohol from children. Why? Because it is a well-known fact that children may not have the capability to limit themselves; they might very well become addicted and fall into it.
Why should it be any different for mobile phones? We know it can become an addiction. And we also know that children do not have the means to limit themselves because of their young age.
Deliberately letting a kid having a phone for an indefinite amount of time is being irresponsible. What would be responsible is only allowing to use the phone for a limited time.
Schools banning phone could be one way towards that. It would be a good way too because the kid would not be suffering from any social pressure from their peers as everyone would be concerned with the ban.
This is just a bad comparison, comparing a drug to electronics makes literally 0 sense.
We don’t let kids eat during class because it’s disruptive, should we ban eating in schools all together? Kids aren’t allowed to play sports in the hallways, sports can cause injuries, ban sports at school?
That’s the logic of this comparison, that is, none at all.
I am comparing a drug to a drug that’s the whole point. Phones are drugs. For adults and children alike.
The problem is not in the phone itself. It’s in the lack of doing things that kids should normally be doing at that age. They will play with their phone instead of playing physically (less tonus), sleeping (constant tiredness), talking with their parents (learning) or other kids (socializing).
I know kids like that in my family. You can tell from the dark lines under their eyes that they spend most of their day staring at a screen. And if you ask them to play outside they just don’t know what to do, they need access to a screen even with other kids. It’s really a scary sight. And its a drug yes
It’s an analogy. It’s inaccurate as all analogies are. Yet it’s useful to make the point that banning children from doing X or Y isn’t unprecedented or unacceptable.
Kids go to school for much more than what they learn in class. A fully formed human being that can function in a society requires a lot of social interaction training. That’s what school is for in-between classes. If kids are staring down their phones during that time instead of interacting with each other, that training is lost. Worse, instead of that, they get trained on a false social reality as portrayed by whatever enshittified platform they’re currently on, based on whatever behavior makes the most money today. Is this enough to visualize the damage phones in hallways cause?
I started learning to code at 9 years old and that helped me become a professional developer in my teens. Preventing access to technology is just removing opportunities from your children. Teach them responsible usage, if it was possible 30 years ago it’s possible now.
I’m all in to get programming classes where children learn to code on PCs. That’s a high pass for me. But AFAIK children aren’t doing programming on their phones.
In general i doubt using a phone at school is going to help them program or teach them about technology. They have plenty of time to explore phones on their own when they get home, especially now that kids don’t go much outside anymore. It’s not like a school ban would be cutting that away from them.
