There's ample evidence that social media and smartphone addiction affects developing brains significantly worse than it affects fully-developed brains.
Banning cell phone use in school is a good thing.
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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Critics don't want to hear that young people whose brains aren't fully developed yet have poorer impulse control than adults...
But young people whose brains aren't fully developed yet have poorer impulse control than adults.
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On the "different rules for adults and students" thing... if the adults model responsible cell phone use, i.e. never in the classrooms or hallways during school hours, never "ducking out" to their car or the teachers' lounge just for B.S. doom scrolling or un-necessary calls, IMO that would be much stronger than just banning phones on-prem for kids and adults alike.
The real key: you should control your cell phone, it should not control you - same thing as so many other addiction problems. And, there will be addicts who genuinely are incapable of controlling it, and cold turkey tee-total zero usage has been shown to be the most effective answer for them - just like alcoholism, not drinking is nothing to be ashamed of, having a problem and drinking anyway is much much worse.
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Texan here, working for a school district where these types of laws have already been implemented: I'm pretty sure it's about controlling narratives, not improving education.
Kids use their phones to fact-check teachers, record teachers improperly addressing students, record fights, and verifiably report on very real issues within the school. I haven't seen any educational benefits from banning cell phones, only that it's been easier to sweep stories under the rug and to refute concerning complaints from children in need.
this is nonsense.
i suspected it as much. teens have been recording inappropiate behaviour by school admistrations. any statutory rape, relationship they dont want that to hit neews. before cellphones, i caught 1-2 professors/instructers using outdated or misinformed facts in bio. this probably where its good to fact check
Fuck that. If you can't stop schools from getting shot up, banning phones is the wrong move.
STOP ARGUING. DO AS I SAY.
NO, YOU CAN'T HAVE A PROTECTIVE BALLROOM!!
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I'm always confused by this as "back in my day" teachers would just take our devices away if they were chasing distractions.
Then again that was back in the 2000s before smart phones and wifi everywhere.
Young people are kinda cooked I guess. Between nic vapes and brainrot they are in for a rough time.
Same, we had texting and snake, but if the teacher saw you doing either (aside from maybe shop class) they would confiscate it til the end of class.
Really shouldn't be a ban. Just have teachers do what they always do take away the distraction and return it at end of class.
The second a fucking cell phone ban in schools hit at a legal level. Its just going to fucking evolve into regulations and bans around cell phone use for us plebians at work. Which will then be used to punish and attack people.
Bans for kids rarely stay that way.
Alot of company's have cell phone rules btw, my mom works in a factory, they can't use their devices other than during breaks. They can write you up and fire you as long as there's written rules and shit.
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Agreed - no cell phones in school, for anyone. If someone needs to contact me while I'm teaching they can go through our admin team!
I could see this making sense if the American education system wasn't already broken beyond repair. Otherwise it doesn't improve education. Simply gives more control to corrupt schools.
In my country a similar cellphone ban in schools has been implemented. Except in our schools kids actually learn quite a lot. It's far from perfect, but far from terrible too. It may or may not have a noticeable impact on students' performance. That remains to be seen, since it was implemented fairly recently. Perhaps scores from this year will indicate either an increase or a decrease.
Though of course, politicians are unlikely to care and even if it ultimately leads to a decline, they won't cancel it.
Hot take but phone ban is schools is bad. We ought to teach kids how to use the phones properly as clearly personal computers are never going away and are fundamental part of our existence.
I know it's hard, I know that teachers will struggle but it's clearly an important investment as we're never going back to a pre personal computer world. It might change shape from a phone to a watch or something but it's never going away.
Really a non sequitur. you could have one course "healthy use of new technology" and ban it for the rest of the school day for distraction-free learning.
You could but you could also train real world practice. Example of this I really like is Japans school cleaning structures where kids learn and practice cleaning and taking care of their surroundings - because we all will need environment maintenance skills forever (or until personal robots).
I know it's not a exact comparison but developing crucial skills and more importantly practicing them is what peak education looks like.
For phone example this would be developing and enforcing phone culture so it caries on out of school. Kids can ignore a single class but a culture shaped within the school will stay with them forever.
Give em booze and ciggies then
don’t forget - schools are there to make moldable employees. not solid adult humans. banning cell phones seems to align with the working industry’s rules, too.
If someone can't have their mobile device on hand because of stupid employer rules then they need to find a new job.
I get that you don't want your team distracted by mobile phone use during work hours, but saying you can't have one is idiotic. Fuck those employers.
OTOH kids need to learn that putting the device away to focus is a thing, if they can't figure it out on their own I'm not against removing the opportunity while they mature.
needing to find a new job and finding one are two different things.
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Let's just ban smartphones all together, if you want to send a tweet use T9 like the ancients.
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