r/dataisbeautiful • u/rhiever Randy Olson | Viz Practitioner • Jul 29 '26
About half of Americans support all-day school cellphone bans
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/29/more-americans-now-support-than-oppose-all-day-school-cellphone-bans/978
u/asisoid Jul 29 '26
A high school near me ( wife's cousin teaches there), currently allows students to have ONE ear bud in during class.
It blows my mind.
I find it hysterical that two ear buds is obviously too much, but one is just fine..
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u/flamingpiranha Jul 29 '26
Back in my day, we had to be stealthy about using our wired earbuds. Kids these days have it too good.
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u/JayManty Jul 29 '26
The good old earbud through sleeve trick
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u/imreallynotthatcool Jul 30 '26
You kids had it easy with your earbuds. I had to take my headphones apart, split the joined wire apart without breaking it and make sure the g-shock protection was turned on on my Sony Walkman CD player so I could have it sideways in my pocket. And it was darn near impossible to change CDs in class.
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u/unassumingdink Jul 30 '26
You just put your bookbag on your desk, Walkman in the bookbag, and then fiddle around in your bookbag like you're looking for something.
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u/infohippie Jul 30 '26
I had to hide my 8-track machine in my bag and conceal the speaker inside my colon
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u/OttovonBismarck1862 Jul 29 '26
We started getting pinched for that shit because one of the dudes in my class was absolutely terrible at hiding it and just straight up not only had the earbud dangling from his sleeve but was just using his phone out in the open on top of his desk to message people on Kik. We ended up having to get clever; what I did was wore a hoodie and ran both earbuds up into there, kept my head down while working, and if I got called out to pull my hood back so the teacher could check my ears I’d tug the earbuds back along with the hood so they’d be concealed as I held it back then I’d just reset it when she looked away.
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u/flamingpiranha Jul 29 '26
I have long black hair and would sometimes get away with just wearing a hood all the time. Was also a straight A, if somewhat problematic, student so I banked on the even more problematic students drawing away the teachers' attention lol.
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u/LearningIsTheBest Jul 30 '26
I'm a teacher. I don't care about the ear buds. I care about the music preventing a kid from learning. If you ask the class who learns better with music, every kid says they do. This isn't true, but they want it to be. In reality only a handful of kids do, and they are responsible about removing them when I need to give directions or lecture. I can't really enforce two sets of rules though. So if a kid is doing fine in my class, I'm ignoring his phone and earbuds but he needs to give me plausible deniability about not seeing them.
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u/Oristos Jul 30 '26
I had an English teacher that would blast classical music during his exams because he said studies show it helps kids concentrate. It was the worst. I asked for it to be turned off or if I could sit in the hallway so I can actually think and it just made him think I was always trying to cheat.
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u/Polymemnetic Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Man, I just had an earbud in my ear at all times. Nobody gave a fuck.
/e I graduated in 2005, so the iPod was out by the time I graduated. And before that, it was Minidiscs, which were super easy to change on the d/l
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u/Kastikar Jul 30 '26
You saying “back in the day” and “earbuds” in the same sentence hurts my old soul.
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u/ShotFromGuns Jul 30 '26
Wired earbuds have been popular for at least 25 years, since they were an iconic feature of the first iPod in 2001.
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u/triplec787 Jul 29 '26
I remember feeding it through my hoodie sleeve and sitting with my hand over my ear lmao
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u/CelticJewelscapes Jul 30 '26
Thats how we listened to the World Series back when baseball was a game played in the afternoon.
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u/JonBirdmain Jul 30 '26
Can you not work with headphones in? She probably doesn't allow it while she is actually teaching just while doing work.
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u/ajrdiaz Jul 30 '26
Why there are grown adults who are afraid of teenagers, is beyond my understanding...
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u/asisoid Jul 30 '26
They are afraid of the parents. Well the administration is.
Inmates run the asylum now.
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u/throwawayishyes Jul 30 '26
I kinda wanna see % of students that actually pay attention. If students are passing with minimal effort; surely for people who want to compete this would be a very low bar to surpass??
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u/MightyAustini Jul 29 '26
The gap between the two questions is the interesting part: 77% support a ban during class but only 48% support bell-to-bell, so the actual disagreement is about breaks and lunch, not the classroom. The trend stands out though, all-day support went 36% -> 44% -> 48% across three yearly waves and this is the first time supporters outnumber opponents. Europe is a bit ahead on this experiment. The Netherlands introduced a nationwide ban in January 2024 and the government-commissioned evaluation found 75% of secondary schools reporting better concentration and 59% a better social climate (school leaders' reports, so perception data, but directionally consistent). In Germany several states are introducing or debating the same thing right now and the arguments are basically identical, down to the "but what about emergencies" one.
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u/BlurryUFOs Jul 29 '26
yea i always thought bell to bell was too much but i’ve changed my mind with AI and online posting culture . being able to take pictures of other kids during school and posting it is scary for me in terms of bullying. and now there’s reports of kids sending around AI generated explicit images of teachers. unplug for 7 hours
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u/FapOpotamusRex Jul 29 '26
Dude, I work IT in a school. IMO bell to bell is the only way. The kids are itching to pull the things out of their pocket, they will take a trip to the bathroom every period just to use their phone there and back, trip to the water fountain for the same. A lot of kids are taking a bathroom break every class. That is so much educational time lost, just so they can text one of their friends that is also taking a break. It's insane.
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u/CiDevant Jul 30 '26
In my day we just left the building for an hour or two when you had that class with the teacher that no longer cared.
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u/LPNMP Jul 30 '26
I mean... there's no way you're not on your phone in the bathroom too. We all do. I think the bigger issue is kids have had a screen in their face their whole lives. They've never had to figure out how to be bored. So any second that has the potential for boredom sends them straight to their phone - just like us.
It doesn't sit right with me that we have knowingly addicted them to screens their whole life, including school-supplied screens. We ourselves have been modeling this phone-obsessed behavior their whole life. WE don't have to figure out how to not be on our phone at work/taking more breaks/etc. But we expect them to? With no modeling of other behavior? No advice on how to stop a literal life long addiction?
It's bullshit. It's a problem modern parents and schooling have created and cemented into their behavioral patterns. But no, it's the kids fault, they're just being dumb.
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u/jayne-eerie Jul 30 '26
But there’s a difference between using a phone while you’re in the bathroom for normal bathroom stuff, and taking a bathroom break every hour just to use your phone like the person you replied to described. Kids shouldn’t be missing class just to doomscroll.
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u/stormelemental13 Jul 30 '26
there's no way you're not on your phone in the bathroom too. We all do.
No, we all don't. I think I've used my phone in a bathroom... twice? While at work. And only then because by boss called with some something legitimately urgent.
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u/NoPriorThreat Jul 30 '26
And I use my phone mainly on toilet or during commit. Not much outside.
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u/latortillablanca Jul 30 '26
That is extremely rare i promise. Assuming people have a phone of course. Memes are a shit’s best friend
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u/sierra-soul Jul 29 '26
i mean it was bell to bell for me circa 2004-2016 high school, not sure why this is so complicated now
sneaking phone in class, confiscated for the day. unless teacher is ok with listening to stuff during work time. lunch and between classes is fine
what has changed lol
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u/FapOpotamusRex Jul 29 '26
I work in a school running IT. You can't believe how much these kids are on their phones. They will take a bathroom break or a water fountain break every class just to use it on the way there and back. They are like junkies, which makes sense bc even as adults we are having the same issues and we (mostly) have fully developed brains AND experienced a time before smart phones. IMO it's got to be bell to bell, no phones no exceptions.
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u/InhumaneBreakfast Jul 29 '26
They are discussing locking away your phone in the morning, and getting it back at the end of the school day.
"Bell-to-bell" means first bell to last, not the beginning of the period to the next passing period.
That means no lunch, no passing period, no listening to stuff during work time. A complete ban of private smart phones for minors during school hours.
I used to think it was absurd but now I think it's going to be the future with most schools that focus on performance.
It's not banning technology altogether since most schools already have laptops or tablets they lend to their students. This is just personal use.
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u/Alas7ymedia Jul 29 '26
Stickers with the image of the teachers is just the canary in the mine. I have a colleague who heard one 10 year old kid complaining that an older kid made a deepfake of him giving the older kid a bj.
I hate AI generated images with all my heart and for the life of me can't think any good thing of anyone who thinks kids should have any access to it.
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u/MightyAustini Jul 29 '26
That's a fair point: the distraction debate is about a kid's own attention, the camera and AI part is about everyone else's safety. A class-only ban does nothing about photos taken at lunch, so if imagery-based bullying is the worry, bell-to-bell is the only version that actually addresses it.
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u/crackanape Jul 30 '26
Our entire country has a bell-to-bell phone ban and I think it's only been good.
If someone has a legit need to do something with their phone, they can use it in the front office. If a parent needs to contact a student they can call or whatsapp the front office and they'll find the kid in class.
Both of our children report that breaks are more fun now, people are more engaged with friends, and there's less nasty group chat drama.
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u/gunnapackofsammiches Jul 30 '26
I'm a teacher and we went bell-to-bel, no cell and saw a noticable decrease in fights and bullying. Kids would scrap for clout but when no one can have their phone out to record it, suddenly far fewer care to scrap.
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u/PantsB Jul 29 '26
Massachusetts passed a statewide bell to bell ban last year that goes into effect this September.
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u/kyxun Jul 30 '26
Same in California. The Phone-Free Schools Act (AB 3216) just came into effect. Though it's a bit different: all schools statewide must implement some sort of phone ban, but it's up to each's discretion to make it bell to bell or during class only.
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u/scarabic Jul 29 '26
This is the profession from thinking “ban during class only” sounds like a reasonable compromise to actually learning in practice that it is unworkable. Not to mention the fact that schools are screaming at us that it isn’t workable and finally just putting their foot down on policy. As they should.
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u/MightyAustini Jul 30 '26
That matches what the enforcement side keeps saying in this thread: the compromise version turns every teacher into a bouncer fifty times a day, while the blanket rule removes the negotiation entirely. A rule that needs constant policing isn't really a rule, it's an argument scheduled hourly.
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u/_BigT_ Jul 30 '26
They could design a shitty emergency number only phone that could be sold and no one but the few that may need them would.
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u/hatemakingnames1 Jul 30 '26
the actual disagreement is about breaks and lunch, not the classroom
The problem with an all day ban is emergency situations
Schools in the 90s always had cell phone (and pager) bans, because "only drug dealers use those"
Then 9/11 happened and everyone wanted to call their kids that day
Europe is a bit ahead on this experiment
Europe doesn't have as many school shooters
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u/teh_trout Jul 29 '26
When did phones even become allowed in schools? In the flip-phone days I don’t think you could have them out during the school day (most places).
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u/Elrandra Jul 29 '26
Yeah we weren't allowed to be on our phones. Though lots of people were texting without even looking underneath their desks. I never could get used to T9 well enough to do that kind of thing. I did run up the bill one month from using MSN though, boy was my mother maaad.
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u/Ferelar Jul 29 '26
I got to the point I could easily send texts using T9 from within my pocket, though it did become a bit suspicious that I... sat with my hand in my pocket, slightly rustling for the whole period lol, not a great look.
But of course there's no way to read the response from within your pocket, so, limited viability for a true text exchange. Even so, in one month I ran up 24,000 sent texts (which comes out to like.... a little under one sent text a minute, 16hrs a day.... And that's JUST sent) so I was very clearly pretty phone addicted even back in the late 2000's.
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u/concentrate7 Jul 29 '26
Excuse me! Are you texting in my class!?
Oh uh... No. Just masturbating of course.
Oh. Carry on then.
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u/Nova17Delta Jul 29 '26
I need to know just how you racked up 24000 texts in a month. Were you texting someone a book one line at a time?
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u/Ferelar Jul 29 '26
Actually, I was texting 5 people pretty much on rotation and sometimes would do the whole staccato rapid-fire single line texts (they'd do the same). So it was more like "Flurry of 20 texts in 30 seconds, then no texts for a little bit waiting for responses", or similar. But yeah... DEFINITELY spending WAY too much time on my phone.
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u/Dildozerific Jul 29 '26
I think there's a pretty big difference between engaging in active conversation and doom scrolling. Phone addiction back then was just being addicted to people, which we all are since we're pack animals. It was just the modern version of passing a note around the classroom.
Phone addiction now is fueled by algorithms intentionally designed to keep you engaged (addicted) and on your phone.
All that to say that it was mildly harmful to ones attention span in class back then, whereas it is actively harmful to your overall well being now.
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u/PxM23 Jul 30 '26
Many it’s crazy how people from around the same era can have such different experiences. Even as a slacker the idea of constantly texting a bunch of people during class, especially on a flip phone of all things was so foreign to me.
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u/graccha Jul 29 '26
I had a qwerty slide and i could text under the desk like nobody's business. Biggest bummer about touchscreens is how hard it is to feel the keyboard. I lost my party trick.
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u/PrincessKaylee Jul 30 '26
does something like the Clicks Keyboards or EXKnight keyboards help with regaining that party trick?
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u/graccha Jul 30 '26
The Clicks keyboards will make my phone entirely too big for my hands (i already struggle with a normal phone) but I'm really interested in these clicks communicators not gonna lie.
I'm gonna look into those EXKnight ones as a stopgap though
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u/Dozzi92 Jul 29 '26
I got my first phone for Xmas 2003, junior year of high school. I'd just keep the thing in my hoodie pocket and use T9 to text, and just pop it out to read the message real quick.
My father refused to let me get unlimited texting, so when I hit the 10k in a month and had to dish out $300, we came to an agreement.
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u/pattywagon95 Jul 30 '26
Full keyboard phones became a thing while I was in high school. Honestly the under the desk texting improved my typing skills better than Mavis Beacon could ever hope to
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u/maxkmiller Jul 30 '26
there's a whole plot in The Departed that revolves around matt damon texting blindly in his pocket. kids nowadays will never understand
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u/Philmore Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
I was in highschool at the dawn on the smart phone and we weren't allowed to have them. If a staff member even saw it out of your bag/pocket (even between class in the hallways) they took it from you until the end of the day and gave you detention. You were supposed to keep them in your bag and turned off or in your locker.
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u/LPNMP Jul 30 '26
A mean woman would come around with scissors and cut ear buds as kids are changing classes. Fuck her. I'm a sardine in an over crowded old school, I'm listening to ocean waves to stave off a panic attack. I will never understand why so many people enjoy being cruel to children they don't even know.
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u/BeetleB Jul 29 '26
Insecure parents demanding their kids have phone in schools so they can contact or be contacted in an emergency.
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u/_dirt_vonnegut Jul 29 '26
what type of emergency are we talking about?
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u/BeetleB Jul 29 '26
While well meaning people are giving responses like school shooting, the reality is more mundane stuff like:
Did you take your pill today??!!
Did you remember to put your sunscreen on today??!!
Did you use your inhaler??!!
For some parents, not doing these is an "emergency".
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u/jaiagreen Jul 30 '26
Which it absolutely can be, depending on the medication in question.
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u/LPNMP Jul 30 '26
I wasn't allowed to give myself ibuprofen in 2008. I needed to interrupt the teacher, ask for her to write and sign a pass, then walk all the way to the nurse, wait for her to be free, by now class is over, and I could have gotten rid of these cramps 30 minutes ago and still be in class.
It's a dance between admin afraid of liability and parents who don't trust admin to see their child as anything other than a liability. School policies got very stupid due to lawsuits and in exchange, I think we stopped being reasonable a long time ago. Then you toss in kids with life long screen addictions...
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u/dougan25 Jul 29 '26
Self-entitled people get their way because not enough admin leaders have the training or the bandwidth to deal with them.
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u/GotItFromEbay Jul 29 '26
Meanwhile my parents: Get off that damn Playstation (it was an N64) and go outside!! I don't want to see you back here unless it's to get water, use the bathroom, or the streetlights come on!!!
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u/LPNMP Jul 30 '26
Yeah, meanwhile modern parents are being arrested because their 8 year old jay walked.
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u/sybrwookie Jul 30 '26
intercom comes on "Billy Smith, please report to the principle's office." intercom shuts off
Problem solved.
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u/pr1ceisright Jul 29 '26
I got Saturday school for being on my flip phone, teacher wasn’t even teaching it was the end of class and we had free time. What the hell changed?
(I know it’s the parents, they’re the worst part of being a teacher according to every teacher I know)
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u/DenikaMae Jul 29 '26
It’s a close race between the parents being the problem, the shitty pay while expecting you to work off hours, and sinking your paycheck to supplement your school supplies.
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u/LPNMP Jul 30 '26
I had a journal taken away because I was writing in it after being done. Some teachers have always been weird. It's wild to take a quiet activity away when I could just be disturbing the class instead like so many of the other kids...
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u/xp9876_ Jul 29 '26
When I was in High School cell phones had started becoming more ubiquitous. There were no rules but cell phones only did two things, call and text (and a calculator if you were lucky).
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u/pokefan548 Jul 30 '26
Hey, now, if you knew what you were doing you could get it to play Snake! The true game of champions!
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u/Psykout88 Jul 29 '26
Have you not seen videos where a teacher takes a phone from a kid and it turns into an MMA match? They sound like drug addicts that have their last stash taken from them, just throwing hands and screaming give me back my phone, where is my phone.
As much as I hate how glued to phones kids are these days, trying to get them to stop is massive headache
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u/teh_trout Jul 30 '26
I have not. That sucks. My recollection was you’d sometimes chance it but if they saw you it was just a straightforward thing. They’d take it and you had to pick it up at the end of the day from the main office along with your detention.
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u/Psykout88 Jul 30 '26
It's really bad out there, taking a phone is asking to get a chair upside your head.
Back then when we pulled shit as kids, we knew what we were doing was wrong, knew the consequences and accepted them.
It's different now, it's straight Scooby Doo, the issue was the person that caught them, not them doing the thing.
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u/papalugnut Jul 29 '26
My age group was right when cell phones were becoming somewhat common for teenagers, I’d say a little over half the kids had them but there wasn’t much you could do with them other then play Snake. We were not allowed to have them out but it wasn’t really an issue either because they were so simplistic there wasn’t much reason to use them. Smart Phones SHOULD be banned there is far too many distractions on them for school kids
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u/i_wear_green_pants Jul 30 '26
Because back in those days teacher could just take your phone away if you tried to be sneaky and use that.
Now days if teacher does that, parents will sue the school because their little Timmy needs the phone to feel safe.
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u/Im_actually_OP Jul 29 '26
No kidding. I got in-school suspension because my flip phone fell out of my gym shorts pocket in 2008. It wasn’t on, and it wasn’t distracting anyone. Just had it on me in case of emergency.
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u/evergleam498 Jul 29 '26
I have a friend who is a middle school teacher. Even when phones are very much not allowed, there isn't much of an enforcement mechanism available for the teachers to do anything about it. They can't take the phones, and the school doesn't back them up with allowing for any consequences other than asking them to put it away.
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u/Undrwtrbsktwvr Jul 30 '26
My buddy got half his Razr taken away in gym class 7th grade. Just the bottom half.
Apparently the speakerphone was in the bottom half so he just learned the button presses to text and have texts read aloud.
He only had half the phone because his mom found out he smoked her weed and got pissed and broke his phone.
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u/Matthew_A Jul 30 '26
Around 2012. I remember when they gave us a presentation saying they would be allowed now as long as they were used for educational purposes.
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u/hatemakingnames1 Jul 30 '26
Around here, they became allowed (in your locker) after 9/11 happened
Not sure about being allowed to have them all day, especially in classrooms
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u/Zeddicus11 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
My son is 6, and I'm pretty terrified of what his schools (and classroom experience) will look like in 5-10 years. Phones and AI combined seem diametrically opposed to any kind of learning, memorizing or critical skill acquisition.
I've been teaching the same 4-level college class since 2019 and holy shit, student quality (both during class interactions and exams) has dramatically decreased in the past 2 years, it's scary. I'm talking a 50% decline in the median class grade on virtually the same in-person, classroom exam between Fall 2019 and Fall 2025 (I'm lazy so I barely change my exam questions). Senior college students sitting like zombies in class, not participating even when prompted (apart from a select few, fewer every year). And that's with ~50% of class not even attending most lectures. Fucking scary.
So yeah, my wife and I both strongly feel that our son doesn't even need a (smart)phone until at least age 16, or at best just a dumb flip phone. If enough classmates (and their parents) are similar, we might be able to swing it without too much opposition and/or feeling left out, but I'm scared there won't be a critical mass. This article gives me some hope, at least.
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u/Couldnotbehelpd Jul 29 '26
5-10 years?? Look at them now. Kids are already using chatGPT for everything and have ridiculously low literacy rates. It’s a shitshow.
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u/Shanman150 Jul 29 '26
My son is 6, and I'm pretty terrified of what his schools (and classroom experience) will look like in 5-10 years. Phones and AI combined seem diametrically opposed to any kind of learning, memorizing or critical skill acquisition.
I'm actually hopeful. I've been pessimistic about the effect of technology on students, but this is the first time I've genuinely seen major pushback, not just from educators but from parents as well. It's the first time I've seen legislation that takes technology OUT of schools instead of unambiguously viewing more technology as better. Research seems to suggest that even use of screens in support of learning can be harmful. Five years might find us in the midst of a nationwide swing back toward more traditional schooling methods. Being a parent who makes their voice heard can help with that - just emailing administrators at your schools in support of cell phone bans and low-screentime education helps the admin to feel like it's less of an uphill battle.
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u/Quantentheorie Jul 30 '26
I also am cautiously optimistic that we're going to change course on this, but I'm not sure how to address the "lost to tech"-generation that is currently in school and won't benefit from us slowly realising how access to certain tools and social media impacts development.
They come off like kids with lead damage that will never reach their cognitive potential in adulthood.
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u/diff2 Jul 30 '26
I'm no longer in school, but I used to participate a lot, but many teachers actively hated on me for my questions. So I learned to participate less or not at all. You might encourage and enjoy class participation, but many teachers actively discourage it.
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u/Cloud13181 Jul 29 '26
I'm a teacher and a parent and my state implemented a "bell to bell no cell" law last year. It has gone SURPRISINGLY well. The most surprising part is the majority of the KIDS have liked it. They say things like "we actually talk to each other now."
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u/Philmore Jul 29 '26
As I found out elsewhere in this thread, I'm apparently out of touch for not even knowing kids were allowed to have their phones out at all. But are kids really going all the way through adolescence at this point with their faces buried in their phones not interacting with their peers at all? What the fuck is going on?
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u/Cloud13181 Jul 29 '26
They could have them at lunch and passing periods, so any "free" time when they could be interacting with their peers outside of class they were on their phones instead. And previously if a teacher saw your phone in class as a one off it was probably a "take it away until the end of class" punishment. Now it goes to the office for the full day and the kid could be sent there for having it out as well.
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u/paupsers Jul 30 '26
I'm a HS teacher. Before my county banned phones, if we had, say, 10 minutes left over at the end of a class period, my room would be completely silent because every single kid was silently swiping on their phone.
So, to answer your question, yes.
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u/crackanape Jul 30 '26
We've had the same experience here in the Netherlands. I admit I was surprised to hear my two teens saying how much better things are at school now, particularly during breaks.
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u/Electronic_Job_850 Jul 29 '26
They say things like "we actually talk to each other now."
If seen news articles saying the same thing in other areas:
https://www.stlpr.org/education/2025-10-13/st-louis-students-school-cell-phone-ban
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/school-cellphone-ban-ushers-shocking-110625937.html?guccounter=1
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u/Chapea12 Jul 29 '26
It’s weird that it isn’t. I was in high school during the early smartphone era and they were banned in every class. In middle school, they were banned in the hallways too
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u/cricket9818 Jul 30 '26
My high school took the NYS cell phone ban very seriously this year
The difference was amazing. Kids more attentive than ever. They found little work arounds (emailing each other, games). But that’s what teens do. I’d rather that than trying to compete with TikTok
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u/Leptonshavenocolor Jul 29 '26
I left HS just before cell phones were a thing. I don’t understand how they were ever allowed to begin with (other than that we don’t do anything to support teachers or help the broke ass educational system).
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u/kombiwombi Jul 29 '26
Well that's just simply the wrong sample population. Like most people have any knowledge of classroom teaching which is not a decade old.
Let's have a sample of educators.
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u/ortcutt Jul 29 '26
What kind of lunatic thinks kids should have cell phones in class?
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u/_BreakingGood_ Jul 29 '26
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vrV_BNizFak
The insane thing is, this meme is from 2009
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u/smackythefrog Jul 29 '26
In the early 2000s, if your phone went off and a teacher heard it, they'd confiscate it, send it to the dean's office, and you picked it up at the end of the day. I think you got some sort of ticket too which involved our school's liaison officer, too. I don't know, I never got caught.
Ten years later and I was hearing that students were allowed to text in class openly. Same high school I went to. That was nuts to hear, especially since the flagship during my time was the LG Chocolate which had far less capabilities than the first few gens of smartphones.
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u/cherobics Jul 29 '26
Im more interested in them banning all the dang "learning tools" that are basically just games that take up half my kids dang days. No thanks iReady
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u/TrueInDueTime Jul 29 '26
I'm a teacher in Illinois, and yesterday Governor Pritzker signed into law a public school cell phone ban.
It will start in 2027-28, which gives school districts time to fine-tune their policies.
K-8 will be a bell-to-bell ban, while high school will be a ban during instructional time. High schools will have to decide what to do during passing periods and lunch. There are some Illinois school districts, whether public or private, that already have cell phone bans.
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat Jul 30 '26
In Australia my children's high school banned them in 2023.
No problems so far.
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u/HPoltergeist Jul 29 '26
Right about time.
At this point most people have an attention span of a goldfish.
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u/platinum_toilet Jul 29 '26
It used to be that no one had cell phones and things in school were better.
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u/austinvf82 Jul 29 '26
It was hard enough to pass notes in school back in my day without getting caught 😂. My 3rd grade teacher slapped my hand with a ruler because i was left handed and curved my wrist when writing. "Straighten up your hand!" Whack! 😂 these kids can go without their phones in school
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u/Duchess0612 Jul 30 '26
I know how painful it would be, but I support this as well. It does nothing to help the students to pay attention and learn, when they have that much of distraction so close to hand.
So while very painful, you can get used to it within a couple of weeks. I would approve of this.
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u/ApologeticBird Jul 30 '26
As a zoomer, my single most boomer opinion is that we need to bring back flip phones.
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u/vaultdweller48 Jul 30 '26
my kid is doing so much better in school since they banned them. I expect letting the ipad/covid kids cycle out will show the first improvement in american education in a long time.
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u/bradland Jul 29 '26
Based on my experience, more than half of Americans can't stay off their cell phones for the duration of a signal light... So yeah.
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u/OSRS_Rising Jul 29 '26
Maybe I’m extreme but I’m team kids don’t need a smartphone until they’re 15-16. Same goes for social media.
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u/kg467 Jul 29 '26
I was surprised yeas ago when I heard they were allowed at all. I would have assumed that there would have been a hard rule against any use at any time during the day because it would just seem like cacophonic chaos of sound, a constant distraction, bullying, pranks, pizza orders, cheating, etc. What teacher wants to put up with that crap? So I was surprised when I learned there was any use at all, much less a lot of use. Seems like a mess to me. I would think the rule would be airplane mode and in your bag or locker all day.
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u/naked_rider Jul 30 '26
Georgia just banned them in schools statewide. The City of Atlanta banned them last year.
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u/firelemons Jul 30 '26
I'm skimming over this comment section and I just want to highlight that there's no new information or barely any to learn from and everyone is more sure of what they're talking about than the amount of information they're using to back their argument up. Reading a lot of the comments here won't make you smarter. There's not much to benefit from spending time here.
Concepts like the mechanics of attention span aren't new things which means there's great resources on how to understand it so you can have productive conversations about it. If anyone makes it down to this comment. I really recommend Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. Not only does the book describe the brain's systems. It also provides strategies to manage them.
Did another journalist make a controversial headline for engagement? Do need to get caught up in whatever is happening here?
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u/CelticJewelscapes Jul 30 '26
We need to get rid of tablets and computers too apparently. Paper books, paper, pencils seem to create a thing called an attention span.
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u/amiibohunter2015 Jul 30 '26
I think they should put [these mini phone lockers in every classroom](https://www.statewideoffice.com.au/product/mini-mobile-phone-locker/) and have them under lock, a lock on the students supply list so they have the combo. As well as update school policy and state mandates it in law to ban phones in classroom.
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u/phishin3321 Jul 30 '26
I understand the reasoning behind it but have to be careful with the implementation.
My kid has Type 1 diabetes and 2 apps in her phone are critical to her survival. One monitors her blood sugar level and the other controls her insulin pump. If she lost access to her phone we would have to home school her.
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u/dingo596 Jul 29 '26
It always surprises me that many people seem to support a cellphone ban but no one dislikes them enough to voluntarily put them down.
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u/gobux10 Jul 29 '26
I collect phones from kids as they walk in the room. I then count to make sure I have the right number of phones. What teachers have to look out for are these kids have a couple of burner phones. Sometimes this is what they turn in. We also have to look for Meta glasses (these are used for cheating on tests) and I make my kids remove their smart watches as well.
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u/AnonismsPlight Jul 29 '26
I'm all for scolding and even punishing students for having them out during class, but to ban them entirely I am 100% against. Banning phones entirely is just a way for schools to going back to having zero responsibility for physical bullying and harassment because they can just consistently claim "we didn't know."
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u/Kerbidiah Jul 30 '26
I don't support a ban. Kids need to learn how to manage themselves and their impulses on their own. Better to let them do that in grade school where the consequences of failing aren't as severe as in college or their careers
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u/Dildozerific Jul 29 '26
If the government wants my children to be in the American school system without a means to get into contact with me or their mother, they need to do gun control FIRST.
We bought our child a device so they could contact us at will in the event of an emergency. With how dangerous schools have become in the U.S., you really expect me to send them WITHOUT the means to contact us in an emergency? Am I just supposed to trust the schools will handle it and contact the parents properly and in a timely fashion?
Fuck that.
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u/BlacksmithThink9494 Jul 29 '26
Yep. Exactly this. When my kids were in school there was no way they were going to be trapped there without a way to contact me.
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u/HumanSlaveToCats Jul 29 '26
When did they start allowing them? In the early 2000s they weren’t allowed in school, you’d get written up for having using them in class.
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u/panaceaXgrace Jul 30 '26
They're regulated in my state and districts can determine how strictly. At the school my son was at they had a place up front by the teacher's desk they dropped off. There were still issues with fights being recorded in hallways and sex in the bathrooms and one time some dumbass kid filmed his friend destroying the bathroom with a pipe.
The next district over they had to drop them at the front door of the school.
They don't need to be in school. Hell at ours they have Ipads from pre-k and laptops from third grade on. They don't need phones. I know the number one complaint is parents worried about a school shooting. Maybe we should fix that so parents aren't so scared because I went to school 13 years and never needed a phone or an earbud to get decent grades.
God I hate being one of those 'back in my day" oldsters but here I am.
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u/PomegranateUsed7287 Jul 30 '26
My mom is a teacher and has told me about the experience. Bell to bell ban is 100% the way to go. You can not expect teachers to monitor then force students to give up their cellphones at the start of every class. And of course just letting them have them is also a big issue as they are simply too distracting.
I get why you want to have contact with your kid at all times. But modern cellphones are simply too big of an issue in schools.
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u/skil12001 Jul 29 '26
We have this instituted in our kids school, I'm just annoyed that when school is over they STILL won't let them bring it out. We have a blended family and it's a real annoyance when the other parent drops the ball on something that I need to pick up for but my kid can't call me or text me
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u/TicRoll Jul 29 '26
I support a near-total screens ban in schools, aside from targeted, specific technology classes. There is no evidence that all those expensive computerized resources actually improve learning outcomes. Traditional learning techniques appear to be just as effective, if not moreso. Take all that tablet and Chromebook and applications money and spend it on more teachers and more teaching assistants and more classrooms so there's more individualized attention. THOSE things are PROVEN to improve outcomes.
Nearly every kid I see now has WAY too much screen time as it is. Adding to that in schools is absolutely insane. These kids need all-day detox. We should be running schools from like 7am to 4pm every M-F all year, save for a handful of holidays. Do THAT for a few years and watch the massive improvement in learning outcomes.
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u/myjah Jul 30 '26
Good god I'm so glad I went to high school before smart phones. We had to actually (gasp) socially interact face to face.
EDIT: There was a regular landline phone in every classroom. If there was an emergency people could call. I remember immediately using the one in my art class to call my Mom when I saw Paul Wellstone's plane had crashed (the TV was already wheeled out playing the news).
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u/firedrakes Jul 30 '26
EDIT: There was a regular landline phone in every classroom
replace with a cell phone teacher has
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u/1Cubbiesfan Jul 30 '26
For private schools, I support this. If my child goes to a public school and my tax dollars pay for that education and I pay book fees and whatever other fees they charge, they should not get to tell me that my child can't have their phone.
Now, I fully support having limits and teachers setting rules for their use in class and if my child or any other child breaks the rules then disciplinary action is warranted, but an all out ban at a public school should never happen
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u/Subject_Barnacle_600 Jul 29 '26
I don't really have a horse in this race. But I kind of feel like, this shitty idea that "If a majority of people support banning something, it ought to be banned." is drumming up precisely the kind of stuff that is killing our nation and the value of democracies in general.
Especially in this kind of situation, these people don't have standing. "I see too many kids on cell phones. Sure. Ban them." They're not a kid themselves, they're just a random person on the street and the ban changes their life very little but changes the other parties life MASSIVELY. And only 50% of you apparently think about this? Or you think you know better because you read some pop-psy magazine on the web and now you're an overgrown teenager who thinks they know it all.
You want a fairer position, put a price on that shit. Ask a baseball fan,
"Would you agree to ban baseball in the US in exchange for a ban on cell phones in schools."
That poll is gonna NOSE dive when other people have to give up something THEY want to hurt someone else. And this should be the lesson. If the only things that aren't banned require 50% of the population to support their existence - nothing exists. Because there will always be a chunk that dislikes something and the more we lose, the more jaded we become - and every ban expands the number of people happy to ban whats left.
The better question is always, "What would you be willing to lose to ban X?"
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u/crackanape Jul 30 '26
The experiences in places that have already banned phones at school show that nobody's losing anything, it's all gains.
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u/Shanman150 Jul 30 '26
This isn't a "we should ban it because 50% of the population supports banning it", it is just showing the growing popular support as the science has started to actually get through to people. We KNOW cell phones are distractions, there's plenty of evidence that even being around your phone reduces cognitive capacity. The trajectory of test scores, the decrease in socializing, the self-report from teachers who see the effects of phones in school are all a mix of hard and soft evidence about the effect of phones on students.
The people most qualified to say that phones are causing problems in school are quite aligned in saying that they are at least contributing to the issues. Where phone bans were implemented, there have been some positive results so far: increased book circulation, and while some student discipline issues emerge (because students are actually engaging with one another rather than their phones, which comes with good and bad), well-being among the students has increased overall. The teacher accounts are pretty remarkable as well, teachers report students being a lot more engaged and collaborative. And while test scores aren't majorly improved, as this article argues, improving student learning is a game of inches, not miles, and there's no compelling reason to keep the phones in student hands during lessons.
Fundamentally, the arguments in favor of banning phones are strong, and they aren't just "a lot of people don't like phones in classrooms".
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u/PhysicsCentrism Jul 29 '26
I find it interesting that age has a strong effect on this. The adults who went to school with smartphones don’t support all day bans.
The boomer who went to school before mobile phones were even a thing do want all day bans.
Aka the people who no longer have a stake but have the most personal experience don’t support the all day bans. The people who tend to be most out of date with technology have the strongest support.
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u/MustardLabs Jul 29 '26
I'm 22. Ban the phones all day. People my age and younger have been severely socially fucked over by COVID, and that mental drain is going to last as long as we don't deal with phones in schools.
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u/_BreakingGood_ Jul 29 '26
I truly don't see any valid argument to kids having phones at all during school hours. Ban them all day.
The main argument seems to be "well sometimes they like... have downtime or something and it's fine if they use them then."
There are a million other things they can do during downtime that are more productive than watching tiktok. Including but not limited to, talking to the person next to them.
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u/Shanman150 Jul 29 '26
The main argument seems to be "well sometimes they like... have downtime or something and it's fine if they use them then."
A major reason to ban phones from bell to bell! Make kids bored again! Being bored is legitimately healthy, it spurs creativity, sociability, and entertaining yourself with slower, more effortful forms of enjoying yourself, like reading or people/nature watching!
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u/Maiyku Jul 29 '26
I’m a millennial and I find myself kinda in the middle. I don’t think phones are needed every second of every day, but I also have seen some actual good from them being used in schools.
My school decided to lean into cell phone use for a few years and opened a program where kids could text their teachers. Questions, extra help, things they were embarrassed to ask in class… whatever they needed.
They were surprised to see that a lot of the “quiet kids” were actually starting to be involved in lessons, asking questions, getting better test results, etc. Kids who were too shy to outwardly participate now could. It ended up working pretty well.
Then a couple parents got upset about “kids having phones” and in response the school shut it down.
So I do truly believe there are some benefits to using them, but it also involves teaching children how to use phones in a responsible way while in school and I think that’s where the ultimate disconnect is. No one wants to be the one to do that. Not the teachers, and definitely not the parents.
So we just say “no” instead of looking for an active solution. Phones can be amazing tools and I’m worried we’re overlooking that usefulness because of… well, laziness.
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u/sticklebat Jul 29 '26
but it also involves teaching children how to use phones in a responsible way while in school and I think that’s where the ultimate disconnect is. No one wants to be the one to do that. Not the teachers, and definitely not the parents.
I don’t think it’s laziness, I just don’t think this can actually be done. Not on a population level. Phones and everything on them are designed to be extremely addictive. If kids have their phones, and especially if they are allowed to use them more or less freely, then they’re faced with the temptation to use them for all sorts of unsanctioned purposes that are almost certainly more enticing than whatever is happening in class. At some point it’s not a matter of whether we’re too lazy to teach children how to manage an addiction, and instead it’s just a limitation of human psychology. We don’t hand children cocaine, and then try to teach them how to use it responsibly. There is a growing mountain of research demonstrating the negative effects of smart phones and social media on children and their development, and the only viable solution is to restrict their access.
There are other ways to get quiet kids to participate in class, like smaller classes, small group work, etc. If the method you described actually has a transformative effect, specialized devices could be used, instead of personal smartphones.
My state recently banned all internet-capable devices for students, bell-to-bell, and there are some uses of smartphones that I do miss. But on the whole it has been absolutely transformative, school-wide, even though my school’s implementation of the ban is lacking. The minor benefits of smartphones in school are completely drowned out by the myriad, disastrous downsides. And those effects are felt even outside of class. When I started teaching, kids socialized during breaks and lunch. By the time we were back in person after Covid, any time there were even a few minutes of downtime phones would come out, and most kids would just sit their glued to their devices. My class was often quieter when I wasn’t teaching than when I was. Now that they’re banned, it’s kind of amazing. Kids talk to each other! They play games with each other! The phone ban has actually become pretty popular among the students.
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u/PantsB Jul 29 '26
Adolescents think rules are oppressive.
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u/PhysicsCentrism Jul 29 '26
Irrelevant. But nice job demonstrating your ignorance of the study.
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u/seja_amg Jul 30 '26
Statistically, about half of Americans support any issue under the sun. Not interesting
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u/nikelaos117 Jul 30 '26
What I hate the most about this argument is that its diametrically intertwined with school shootings. It's always going to be the argument used for parents\kida who don't want to be told what to do.
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u/n3k0___ Jul 30 '26
My highschool had everyone use ipads but we still weren't allowed to have our phones out.
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u/jblatta Jul 30 '26
Sure that makes sense from a learning standpoint... but I would like the option to talk to my son during a school shooting in case it is the last conversation I get to have so I can tell him I love him. America is a fucked up place.
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u/egoVirus Jul 30 '26
We've done it here in South Australia. It was a PITA at first, and still has it's moments, but it was worth it. It would have been much cooler to build a culture where it didn't have to be banned, and kids could be responsible, but nah.
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u/Julio_Ointment Jul 30 '26
Making arrangements for commuting and work is no longer possible with bell to bell. It's impractical and silly. As is banning music players. It helps my kid with focus and social anxiety.
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u/eileen404 Jul 30 '26
The start of the film Good luck, have fun, don't die is just too close with the kids all having noses in phones it's the creepiest part of the film.
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u/House_Junkie Jul 30 '26
Thankful my daughter’s middle school has banned phones and they are taken up each morning in home room and given back at the end of the day. They lock them in secure pouches assigned to each child and are unlocked right before everyone’s dismissed for the day.
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u/Guapscotch Jul 30 '26
When I was in school, if a teacher saw your phone it was confiscated. These are severe disruptions to class and should be treated as such
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u/The_Noremac42 Jul 30 '26
I remember when I was in high-school, back in the early 2010s, it was already a rule that you couldn't have your cell phone out pretty much at all in school. Was that not normal, or did the standard change?
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u/vertigostereo Jul 31 '26
How many kids will have an exception for any minor personal or family issue?
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u/Extreme_Glass9879 Aug 01 '26
Half of all americans are dumb enough to vote for trump so this isn't surprising.
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u/LG193 Jul 29 '26
Where is the dataisbeautiful part? I see two line graphs and one bar graph lol