That’s a good way to keep children from documenting and reporting abuse.
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Maybe you should fix the systematic problem instead of doing surface level fixes that impact the freedom and mobility of minors.
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What's funny is all the rich tech elite send their kids to schools that don't use tech to the same degree as public schools. Wonder why.
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We've had a similar ban in the Netherlands for a year or two now. Mobile phones were already not allowed in classes. Kids seem to have survived.
See everyone, It's not just us Americans! The French are doing stupid things too!
It's a joke, don't write in.
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.
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.
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Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy?
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.
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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.
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
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?
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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).
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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.
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That's ass. Just don't allow use during class.