Reply to Why not phone free

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Why not phone free"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP, I will only say this anonymously because it's such a controversial opinion and I don't enjoy starting conflict, but I actually don't love phone free bell to bell policies in high school, and prefer for high school age students to have access to their phones at lunch/breaks, with strict consequences if use is inappropriate or disruptive to class time. High school students can be juggling a lot, including commitments outside of school such as family, non-school social circles, jobs, and non-school related activities like significant volunteer experiences. I don't see the benefit to such students from being completely unreachable 7-9 hours a day at school, if they can use phones responsibly when they have a few minutes free during the day.

I graduated from high school in 2012 and am currently the guardian of 2 teens in high school (complex family situation, they're not mine biologically) and the biological parent of twins in preschool. When I was in high school we still had "flip phones" aka "dumb phones" and I remember needing to check my voicemail and text messages between classes & at lunch to keep up with everything. Similarly, my teenagers have a lot going on and their school's recent shift to completely phone free has been a terrible fit for my kids so far. Not a fan, as I personally see few benefits and several drawbacks. 
[/quote]

You're totally right about the need to juggle/manage – but I think that's an argument [i]against[/i] phones rather than [i]for[/i] them. It's hard enough for adults not to check their phones every two minutes. Kids are even less able to regulate that impulse, and it's incredibly distracting. Even if they're not being openly disruptive, they're still glancing down, task-switching, going to the bathroom for 10 minutes, etc. And I don't blame them! Phones, and especially endless-scroll social media apps, are designed to be addictive.

I graduated HS in the early 2000s, so no one had individual phones yet. I was involved in a competitive/travel-heavy activity and went to school a decent commute from my house, and this was all totally manageable with advance planning. I did have a school email account, but I needed to go to the library computers to check it.
[/quote]

+1.

On top of all this, if kids are so busy then having that phone free lunch/break gives them relaxed time to talk face-to-face with friends. All that research we keep seeing about loneliness and it's impact on teen mental health can be blunted by giving kids this time where they have to interact in-person if they're interacting at all.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics