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.
Except none of these things were feeding Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan garbage straight into their highly impressionable skulls.
I, for one, support the banning of phones in schools. The social media addiction has been shown to cause depression, particularly in girls, and the brainwashing is ever more apparent.
If anything, this policy fails by not going far enough. I question whether kids should have access to social media at all before a certain age.
Rush Limbaugh was broadcast on the free radio, you could listen to it on $1 worth of junk parts if you knew what you were doing. The ease of access is not what made republican bigotry accessible or popular.
Sure, but we're talking about a way different scale. "If you knew what you were doing" being a key word here.
It's never been easier to come across this garbage when youtube/Instagram/Tiktok comes installed on most phones by default. What's worse, there have never been so many grifters spewing the same shit.
Back in the day, you might have been able to call Limbaugh an isolated instance of a clear grifter getting paid to spread lies.
Nowadays, the Tate clones are so ubiquitous that it's hard to point out the flaws in thinking because so many people seem to believe in them. But its just the algorithm feeding you more of the same, over and over.
It was almost the entirety of AM radio for the past 40 years. Sports and this right-wing trash. On in the background at every work place, hardware store, and cafe until Muzac took over. Had that ranting asshole and his friends pumping into our ears wanting it or not. Many areas of the country had only that and Country Music for hours in any direction.
When I said "if you knew what you were doing" I meant you can build an AM receiver out of literal trash with a middle school understanding of electrics but no one bothered because you had one built in to every car, every tape player, boom box, alarm clock, and anything else with a speaker. You had a radio in every room of the house and 2 in the garage even if you never turned it on. There's no way to believe that phones have less cultural push than AM radio had pre-1990.
I mean, you can believe whatever you want, but the answer is yes there is.
You should watch the series Adolescence, btw. It deals with this exact topic. Its 4 episodes long and it shows how social media and constant connection and more importantly INTERACTION with everyone, has an effect that is fundamentally different from passively listening to AM radio.
Sorry, didn't pay my Netflix cultural tax this year. Maybe I'll sail the sees for it.
I highly encourage you to. 🏴☠️
And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about. (Edit for clarification: what I meant by "so anything about it" was schools aren't responsible for teaching good and responsible phone use and self control, nor is it their job to step in when the parent is doing their job with teaching these skills).
I'll also point out the argument that there was a push back then for outlawing video games and violent music because of its effect on young children and regardless of the validity of the danger to kids, it's still the fault of parents who were allowing their children to listen to that music or play those games. Schools already likely have policies about cell phones, or at the very least policies about confiscating distractions.
You seem to have taken this as not support for banning phones in schools rather than what it really is. A criticism of this method for the deficiencies that it creates without solving the problem or even (more than likely) changing anything about the protocols already in place for handling distractions in schools except potentially creating a worse situation for the administration who have to now be responsible for these items en masse because students and parents are going to ignore this until it hurts them personally.
It also doesn't teach students anything at all about moderation or the dangers of the internet, nor does it teach them anything about this tech which they will end up having to use as adults. And if you have seen adults with this tech you know it's not just a danger to kids.
Okay so, because some parents are bad and fail at educating their kids properly, society shouldn't take a role in correcting that behaviour and instead should just let kids be damaged for life, did I understand you correctly?
I don't know where you're from (although I can guess), but here in Europe, and this is an article about France, we recognise the state has a role to fulfill in society, we all pay taxes and expect them to be used for the benefit of all. I don't see any problems with schools being the enforcers of government legislation in this instance.
Also, everything else you wrote... I mean, it is obvious that your school system is very different from what I'm familiar with. Because yes, it IS the school's responsibility to make sure that rules are applied properly in their premises, the money/resources necessary to do so are a secondary thought. This shouldn't be something that needs to be explained, but well, here we are.
So, what (in France I know!) are you getting for said taxes that you were not getting before?
Because that's exactly what I'm getting at. It is the schools responsibility to enforce the rules. The point is, it's not the schools responsibility to take on the liability of what comes with that (ie. Holding onto thousands of dollars worth of tech with the ability to keep that tech in the same condition it was in when it was confiscated for an untold amount of time), it is the parents responsibility to make sure their children aren't ringing such distracting material to school. And this means there are already likely protocols in place for distracting material. So what are you getting out of this ban?
But it is, actually. Lol. It's always been. I've had my phone taken in class a few times, and it was always returned at the end. It's really not a big deal.
I don't know what you mean by "Holding onto thousands of dollars worth of tech". Its up to the teachers to keep it for the duration of the classes, and to return them at the end. They don't need a safe to keep them in. It really isn't that big a deal.
It should be, but again, they aren't. Which is why the schools must intervene. And it's not really something they want to do, it is something they have to do, by government mandate.
So when one of these phones start a fire because it's been improperly kept and the battery has a thermal runaway event?
If the phone is always returned then literally the law does nothing. The phone is being given back to the student? That's a failure in the implementation of protocol or policy. You can't use that to claim my argument is invalid because it literally does not make sense in this context.
You still haven't answered what you are getting at here. These rules have to be enforced either way, so I don't know why you think complaining your way out of it should even be a factor. It isn't. Schools need to deal with it, simple as.
Or are you just saying "well, I don't see how this can be enforced so they might as well not do anything!"?
This is wasteful. It is short sighted. It does not fix or mitigate the problem and makes the problem worse for a lot of reasons that I can detail if you would like (but I doubt that will matter to you at all because you seem to be misunderstanding everything I've said).
This can be enforced. It will be detrimental to the school system as a whole. It is not a fix for any of the problems detailed. It doesn't change anything as far as I can tell and literally nobody has been able to come up with anything to validate what it would change, how it would change it for the better, or why the current rule structure and protocols in schools would benefit from it in any way.
So I'm saying it's shortsighted and either needs to be reworked, or criminalizing parents allowing their children to bring such materials into schools should be implemented instead.
They trialed 180 schools, forcing the student to hand over or otherwise stow these devices in a place they couldn't access for the duration of the school day. And they have "evidence" that it helps with the "child well-being, and focus".
So now they are making it mandatory for all schools? How? What protocols are they putting in place? I'm really curious. The article says nothing. It's basically a really poorly worded press release.
Are the schools providing a place to house these devices? That would be a liability.
Are the schools banning the devices in the premises? If so, what are they doing with the ones that are going to be confiscated?
Is this law going to hold the parents accountable in any meaningful way (besides the potential inconvenience of having to pick up the phone at the school in person)? If so, that would be the only potentially beneficial part of a law like this.
What does the school do with such contraband? Can they turn it over to an authority like the police? This could also potentially be a beneficial part of making such policy into law. Depends entirely on how it's implemented.
Why do people always assume criticism is " we should just do nothing? " What is wrong with looking at something and seeing that it might be flawed and speaking up?
What are you even talking about at this point? The article is very clear.
There was a trial where schools were asked to get students to leave their phones in their lockers or in a pouch. The results were positive, so now they are expanding it nationwide. I don't know what is complicated about this.
Is it gonna be flawless? No, and there probably is room for improvements. But it isn't wasteful or short-sighted as you claim.
You'd do well to know that most schools in France are public and equipped with lockers, so this isn't that big of an added expense. Sure, it could be bothersome if teachers have to tell students to leave their phones on their lockers, I guess. But that's about it. Worst case it will be as it was back in my days, where the teacher kept the phones of the rogue students on his table until the end of classes.
They'll probably never gonna get everyone. But if they can get even 60% of students to leave their phones in their lockers all day, that's already a net positive for very little added costs, most of which won't be monetary unless it's a school with particularly degraded lockers that must be replaced.
I don't find it necessary to answer the rest of the rambling. Contraband? Criminalising parents? Lol. Kids lie to their parents all the time, they buy phones behind their backs. Holding parents criminally accountable would be insane.
The article gives little to no detail about the law or what's changed. It makes claims that this was a pilot program implemented in 180 schools whereby students were required to place cell phones in a pouch or locker they couldn't access during school hours. It makes claims that this was successful, and therefore a ban will be implemented. It doesn't say if this ban will use the same protocol (having students place phones in a locked pouch or locker they don't have access to for the school day). It doesn't state how this differs at all from previous laws that prohibit students from using mobile phones on school premises which were implemented in 2018.
It doesn't explain what the "separation of student from phone" looks like, or what the repercussions will be for students found with a phone. It says nothing about protocols to properly store the devices (and what will happen in the event of an emergency where the device is a danger to students or property).
It gives literally no details, and doesn't even link to the law in question.
A further guardian article I found says it is receiving criticism for some of the problems I have previously detailed (though not all of them). That same article strongly advances the idea that cell phone use is a detriment to children's health and inference can be made that this is the main reason for such a ban, but this ban does not fundamentally solve this problem in any way.
It doesn't say they are expanding the implementation used in the trial nation wide. That is an assumption you made that the writer likely also made and didn't follow-up. This is just a poorly written article full stop.
Your argument is terrible, and poorly defended. You only went and read the article after you started making arguments to me. I read the article before I made my first comment because I had a lot of questions that were not answered and still haven't been answered. That's literally because the media is doing a poor job of explaining this situation and the law in question.
Okay, to be quite honest, you're reading way too deep into a matter that doesn't even concern you considering you're not a resident of France, and I'm probably wasting too much of my own time even entertaining your rambling.
So we'll stop here. I'll just close with what I know from experience with these kinds of policies, they always come out rough and broad but the details can (and will) be refined as its implementation spreads nationwide and they start covering the pot holes.
And it will spread nationwide, because it wouldn't make sense in the context of France to have a government-funded program only apply to a small region of France. It's not a municipal policy and France isn't composed of individual, sovereign states either.
Again, none of these things should need to be said since that's pretty much how all new policy launches work. And as usual, the person I'm debating doesn't even know the basics of how X country operates and apparently don't know how policy works in general, yet still they believe they can educate me on this matter. So I'm forced to conclude this indeed must be a day ending in -y.
Speaking of day, have a good one!
What's your point? Are you banning the entire Internet?
All this stuff is still accessible once the bell rings and before they get to school, just like it was when I was a kid. Kids were still going on YouTube/MySpace/ Facebook and more to share things. This argument doesn't make sense.
You're attributing the issue of algorithms to the medium itself.
Facebook and YouTube weren't as good at recommending things back then. It's not the internet as a whole that's the problem, it's what social media has become. Addiction skinner boxes. It's not ok for kids to grow up using that.
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.
I remember when people didn't have phones on them 24/7 and kids didn't die and parents could call the school if they needed to talk to the kids. Somehow we survived.
And a bunch of people didn't but we don't talk about them, it was the norm back then.
But people don't like that song, so you're right about not wanting to talk about it.
Speak for yourself, thats a constant banger at the jams with friends.
Well the #1 reason US parents want their kids to have phones is because so many kids die in school shootings and parents have a need to be able to get ahold of their kids.
That's the #1 reason, no matter how illogical it is
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, you're right. Kids calling 911 is what gets first responders on scene. Until kids in America can attend school without the threat of gun violence, banning phones is not an option.
If they have to hide their phones now, they won't be using them as much, which is The end goal.
You might be living proof that not using tiktok does not necessarily make you smart, I'll give you that point.
They already had to "hide the phones". Literally France already passed a law stating that phones aren't allowed in elementary and middle schools for students. Those phones previously had to be kept in a backpack or pocket and weren't allowed to be used on the premises.
This new law does one singular thing, so far as I can tell (which isn't made clear in either of the articles I read). It actually actively makes students surrender phones at the beginning of the school day and locks those phones away in a centralized location the students don't have access to.
The problem with that is what I have been saying in subsequent comments. There are protocols in place for what happens when a student breaks the rules. But A. They mention nothing at all about how they will know a student is carrying around a phone in their pocket or using it in the bathroom. And B. they mention nothing about the repercussions for skirting such rules and regulations.
Additionally, if this is about student mental health (as they claimed), it does absolutely nothing to teach them about the dangers of cell phones, nor does it even remotely teach them to moderate cell phone use.
About 'better at hiding them'; maybe so; but that will largely be down to how the rule is enforced. Some schools basically just say "please don't carry your phone. Put it in your locker." In those schools, basically every student has their phone in their pocket. Whereas other schools are more strict about it. The phone can be confiscated on site, and in some cases require the parent to collect it. In those cases, compliance goes way up.
As for 'no phones for teachers and admin'; unfortunately, some of the jobs and responsibilities of teachers are done using a phone. Teachers are required to carry a phone during yard-duty, for emergency purposes. And teachers often use their phone to mark class attendance rolls. ... But its definitely a bad look when a teacher is walking down a school corridor staring at their phone while student phones are banned.
As for the reasons for the ban... well, they are many and varied - including all of the things you mentioned. (liability, mental health vs bullying in particular, and distraction from class activities.)
Are they going to allocate money to every school to employ technologies to prevent cell phone usage on the premises? Unlikely because, as I said, this law is to prohibit students from having cell phones, not teachers or administration.
So what happens when a school now has to confiscate and hold $1000 phones en masse? It makes them a target for theft. It makes them a target for lawsuit in the event that any of those phones are misplaced, stolen, damaged etc.
Teachers and admins didn't used to have cell phones in schools either. What are they doing on a phone that they can't use a landline and a computer for? Why is a cell phone so important for yard duty? Why is it a requirement? What does the cell phone do that a landline can't do?
To avoid any risk of legal liability the school rule becomes "do not bring a mobile phone to school", similar to the advice that schools give about valuables in general - especially on sport days. Bring at your own risk. This is especially true when it is a government policy - i.e. not the school's decision.
Note, this article is talking about France. But as has been pointed out, France is not the first country to do this. I live in Australia, and my comments are based on the phone bans here which have been in place here for a few years (I think the state of Victoria was first, and all states have seen one-by-one followed that example because they see it as a good idea.)
The discussion about whether or not teachers should have smart phones is a separate issue. It has a totally different pros and cons, benefits and challenges.
Schools likely already have a policy about bringing valuables items to schools which applies here. They also likely have policies about objects that are distractions in class or not suitable for school environments with protocols in place to enforce and or deal with said objects. So tell me. Why is this different? I know the article is talking about France.
So, explain to me why this law is necessary? What does it achieve? What does it do that wasn't already being implemented?
The primary purpose of making it a government policy is to defuse the endless arguments and pushback that schools were fighting to stop students using phones.
If the rule is a case-by-case thing implemented by individual classroom teachers, it doesn't work at all - because students will quickly see and exploit differences in how the rule is enforced by different teachers. It means the phones still get used, and any attempt to remove that distraction becomes a massive battle of "why are you targeting me. That other student is allowed to use theirs. The other teachers don't mind." etc etc.
Having a clear school-wide policy mostly fixes that; but it still gets a very similar effect from the parents. "I give my child permission, because they need it for such-and-such reason". It can be dealt with, but it is genuinely a large burden on the school. But having a clear government policy removes that battle for the school. The answer is always clear "it's a government policy, it is not our decision to make". (By the way, there are still some exemptions for medial reasons; but again, there are no case-by-case arguments, because the policy is the same for all schools.)
So in short its about consistency; to reduce conflict between teachers and students, and between schools and parents.
Flip that argument around for me and tell me what that argument is. Because what it seems like it boils down to is a version of favoritism which will still exist and be taken advantage of under the law. What does this law fix exactly? How does this law prevent favoritism?
I don't know what you mean by favouritism. The reasoning for the phone ban goes something like this:
If you're talking again about the fact that teachers are allowed phones but students are not, then I'm disappointed. I've put in quite a bit of good faith effort into talking about this stuff. At the start of our conversation I felt that I was answering genuine questions, and perhaps helping clarify why someone might want a law like this. But now I'm starting to feel like that was entirely wasted, because you never wanted to think about it anyway - you only wanted to fight it. That's how I'm starting to feel. Maybe I'm wrong, but this 'how does the law prevent favoritism' seems like a totally bullshit line to reasoning to me.
Different laws and rules target different groups of people for different reasons. There's a huge list of rules and responsibilities that apply exclusively to teachers and not other professions. And there's a heap of rules that apply to children and not adults. There can be different rules for different reasons. As for phone usage, I'd personally be totally fine if all smart phones were phased out for everyone for all purposes across the entire world. But I do think it's a false equivalence to say that if phones are banned for students they should also be banned for everyone else. It a totally separate argument. And note: I'm not introducing this law. I didn't ask for it. I didn't design it. I don't even live in the country that the article is from. I'm only try to outline what I understand to be the motivation. If you think something negative is going to result from this law, you should try to outline what that is. What-aboutisms are not helpful.
Man. I read the article. You all seem to be taking what I said as "I think students should have cell phones in schools". In actuality I don't think there's any reason for students to have cell phones in schools.
So my argument isn't that I think the ban is bad. My argument is that this is a piss poor way of going about it that doesn't really add any benefits (especially when you consider that the law preventing students from using cell phones in schools has been on the books since 2018).
So this is not an argument about what researchers found as far as differences in the mental health of students allowed to have phones (which is a big jump because at best the phones are tolerated in students pockets or bags not allowed to use them in school during lessons), vs those that aren't. That part of what has been said up and down this comment section is irrelevant. It has nothing at all to do with my original comment.
I don't care what governments recognize about a correlation between student mental health or well being and cell phone use. That's not got anything at all to do with what I said.
If you're disappointed it's literally because you didn't read.
Lol yeah criminals are going to raid schools to grab a couple of phones, sure buddy, take your meds now
Don't know any delinquent teenagers do you? And don't even start with the "must be American BS" because I'd be happy to Google some news stories for you.
I can tell you didn't read either.