Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools

My kid just graduated from a NYC high school that had a complete ban on phones in school. The kids checked in their phones at the front desk on the way in and got them back when leaving.<p>It was by no means watertight -- many (most?) kids had a &quot;burner&quot; phone that was dead or broken or whatever that they turned in (because nobody would believe a highschooler who said they didn&#x27;t have their phone with them lol) and they kept their real phone. But at least the expectation was set that you can absolutely not ever be seen using a phone in class.<p>Overall I think it was a good policy. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s workable at large schools.<p>In NYC at least you simply can&#x27;t tell families that kids have to leave phones at home -- they are an essential tool for safety and travel, especially for younger kids. My 12 year old can take the subway to school by himself, but ONLY if he has a phone in case he ends up in some wackadoodle situation where his train has gone express or is on another train line and he needs to call his lifeline (me!) to figure out how to work it out. But they do not need to have them in the classroom.

This headline appears to be bullshit. The report does not recommend banning smartphones. This is what it actually says:<p>&quot;Banning technology from schools can be legitimate if technology integration does not improve learning or if it worsens student well-being. Yet, working with technology in schools, and the accompanying risks, may require something more than banning. First, policies should be clear on what is and is not permitted in schools. Students cannot be punished if there is no clarity or transparency on their required behaviour. Decisions in these areas need conversations supported by sound evidence and involve all those with a stake in students’ learning. Second, there should be clarity on the role these new technologies play in learning and on their responsible use by and within schools. Third, students need to learn the risks and opportunities that come with technology, develop critical skills, and understand to live with and without technology. Shielding students from new and innovative technology can put them at a disadvantage. It is important to look at these issues with an eye on the future and be ready to adjust and adapt as the world changes.&quot;

Going against HN&#x27;s usual anti-smartphone thing, I think this is incredibly dumb. Luckily no one really cares much about what UNESCO calls for.<p>Outright bans on smartphones in schools are no different from the video game, TV screen time, &quot;kids will only play games on computers&quot; and other related superstitions that were in vogue back in the early 2000s. All they did was make parents feel validated (without having to put in the work to understand their child) and make life difficult for most kids while building resentment.<p>As with most things, the decision of smartphone access for kids should come down to having parents actually understand their child, his&#x2F;her needs and ability to handle the associated responsibility.<p>Especially as a teenager, pursuing my interests in computers was nothing but constant arguing with my parents because they were constantly being supported by outsiders (who had never seen what I was doing) on their anti-computer superstitions of the time (due to which they wholesale refused to understand that I wasn&#x27;t gaming the vast majority of the time).

We&#x27;ve come full circle. When I was in high school (2013), smartphones had just started to become the default (i had a galaxy s2) and cell phones had been banned in-class since they became common for every teenager to have one (as early as 2007 for me, probably earlier than that for older millennials)<p>I guess at some point teachers gave up trying to enforce the rules. Or the idea of being away from your phone for hours at a time became strange to everyone. Or maybe teachers thought they could incorporate phones into lesson plans.<p>Anyway, I think we were better off not being allowed to use our phones in class.

I wish education went the other way, focusing on integrating educational tools to adapt to a world where everyone has access to the world&#x27;s full repertoire of knowledge at all times. Teach kids to integrate these powerful tools as part of their learning and problem solving skills. By the time a kid is out of high school they should have a powerful index of knowledge accessible from all devices to help them tackle complex problems.<p>I was always resentful in high school when teachers said you wouldn&#x27;t have access to informational charts or calculators in the real world. At that time I considered my integration with some electronic devices an extension of myself and an external index, it was like having a bunch of additional limbs for problem solving. Not having access to my tech devices was equivalent to being artificially lobotomized. And kids growing up will have access to even more powerful tools thanks to LLMs.<p>Societies that adapt and integrate tech devices as part of the educational experience will have a competitive advantage in the long run.

Not sure about you guys, but I plan to not give my kids a phone until they reach at least the age of 14 (7 and 3 atm)<p>Is this realistic? Any experiences?

I support this completely. I would go the extra step of not making internet capable phones accessible to under 14 year olds in general.

There is an ugly trend here. We want to protect children from exploitation, so we make artificial learning environments where kids interact with each other instead of adults and perform often silly exercises instead of actually participating in the creation of value. Now we want to protect kids by removing their capacity to communicate and organize socially. Protecting children is a noble goal, but it may be possible that the best protection for children is to interact with adults to create value and communicate and organize socially. Building cocoons for kids hoping that will help them pupate into successful adults seems misguided.

There is a massive increase in teen depression since around 2012:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nypost.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sites&#x2F;2&#x2F;2023&#x2F;06&#x2F;teen-depression.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nypost.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sites&#x2F;2&#x2F;2023&#x2F;06&#x2F;teen-d...</a><p>This is totally unprecedented. It is likely that the addictive quality of smartphones and social media are the cause. They are replacing physical contacts with virtual ones. There is a serious argument to be made to outright ban teenagers from owning smartphones until the age of 16, similar to laws on smoking and alcohol.

I would support this purely on the basis of reducing the privacy invasion of those children by those devices. The confusion is any other devices they use will similarly be phoning home so I would advocate for their removal too.<p>The future seems to involve some sort of macro Tesla aesthetic where more than you thought reasonable has been removed, what is there may not be executed well, and what displays etc there are in one physical region all go through one single point of control&#x2F;truth attestation with other devices banned. In the case of a school that will be the school IT which they may outsource.

A family friend is a teacher and she talks about how the kids just play with their phones the whole time. They don&#x27;t pay attention and she&#x27;s not allowed to do anything about it. I don&#x27;t understand how we got to the point where teachers have zero authority.<p>I don&#x27;t understand why phones can&#x27;t be put in lockers. If you really need to use the phone for an emergency, you could get a pass. And in the past isn&#x27;t that what the office was for?

I don&#x27;t see a more elegant solution than this, but it&#x27;s a bummer. Smartphones are so useful; the world&#x27;s information AND a computer in your pocket! The ideal would be to give students and parents an avenue to remove&#x2F;combat the addictive elements of their smartphones, but most students (and parents) don&#x27;t see those elements as a problem, but a feature.

In the workplace you have BYOD, bring your own device. But in order to access the services needed at your workplace, you need to install MS Intune and similar, which basically give your workplace limited admin access, they can remotely wipe your device, set stronger pin requirements etc. Perhaps something similar should be made available for schools. So the school can limit use of the phone without putting the phone in a drawer

Phones should&#x27;ve never been allowed in school to begin with

How about teaching kids self control and concentration?

I worry that times have changed, and adults proposing these rules may not “get it.”

So much for bicycles for the mind I guess :(

I feel like this thread is being spammed by tiktok shills

Thank you. I support this. Want us to teach your kids effectively? Then stop sending them to school with highly addictive distractions.<p>I&#x27;ll also add that I&#x27;ve yet to see a single use case where a student&#x27;s phone was a necessity at school (remember that school offices have phones for emergencies!)... yet I have seen dozens (hundreds?) of instances where the phones produced a negative outcome: cyber bullying, playing games, texting each other, sexual harassment, disruptive ringtones and notifications, and the overall shortened attention span from kids who &quot;secretly&quot; need to check their phone every 5 minutes to check the latest tiktok or Reddit reply or upvote or Like or blah blah.

I fully support this, especially with WEI being forced upon us which makes smartphones into bigger portable ad machines than they already are.

Unesco does not seem to want you to see what they want to show children in schools.<p>Probably subversive material.

The smartphone is the greatest education tool in perhaps ever. All the world’s information available immediately on a handheld device. The stuff of magic. Taking this away from anyone, especially children who will benefit the most from this amazing resource, is tantamount to child abuse.

Since the cat is out of the bag regarding mandatory education, I don&#x27;t support this.<p>Allowing kids to use smartphones freely in schools 1) will act as a very good filter and 2) will keep the most annoying kids entertained thus allowing the kids who pass through the former filter to learn without interruptions.<p>The way it works now, we&#x27;re just going for the lowest common denominator. The results are obvious.

Well, I&#x27;m not supporting this. Our society try to ban everything. I believe education is better than repression. Ok, it takes time but it worth it.