Good, I’d probably have done way better in high school if my phone hadn’t been there (and if I’d gotten my ADHD dX and Adderall rX back then). No reason to have them on you if you’re a student. Parents and family can call the school if there’s an emergency.
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Educational experts, at least here in Germany, advise against a ban. A phone enables participation for a child among children who‘ll just work around the ban. The net effect will be negative.
Would this not be a ban on phones for kids and less on in class? I don't think they would miss out on much during class time, but not having a phone at all would cause a social barrier in today's world.
Uhm yes. A second argument was that the children need to learn media literacy with the medium they use the most. Of course this would need more competence and guiding on the side of the teachers.
If you're adding another thing to teach, it would also require additional time. Teachers have full loads as-is.
There's plenty of absolutely useless stuff done in schools just because that's how we used to do it.
Yes, we need to reform the system.
I remember reading a study not too long ago that said being excluded for not having a phone isn't really happening in schools that have already banned phones.
I'll link it here if I can find it.
I don't see how.
Most houses don't have home phones anymore so kids cannot just call up their friends. I think the over lap of people who don't allow kids' phones also don't allow social media is high.
Younger children (ages 6-11) shouldn’t have more than a basic “Ladybug-esque” phone, their parents should largely be coordinating playdates between friends and supervising them during anyways — so there’s no need to text.
Tweens, IMO, can start getting a real phone but parents need to step up and lock that shit down. No social media, no adult sites, no ability to contact strangers.
Then, as the kids learn and become more responsible, the parents should start unlocking features as privileges upon a showing that child understands the internet, its permanency, and how it can be a useful tool but also a possible addiction/source for harm.
I’d say when the children are in their teens, social media should start to be unlocked BUT monitored. I really think the big social media companies are just evil and don’y care about protecting children at all, so it’s up to the parents to ensure that.
Then when the kid becomes an adult, their parents have no say and hopefully the parents prepared them well for the real world!
I say this as an adult who had technologically illiterate parents as a child and thus I had free access to the internet and the birth of modern social media around the age of 11 or 12 lol. I saw shit that definitely left impressions on my brain (r/watchpeopledie on reddit) and was also almost groomed by a stranger lol. I imagine the internet would be even worse for my younger self’s brain nowadays.
Overall, I think more in-person socialization would be better for everyone of all ages.
Ah yes, if [unnamed vague concept] of German “educational” “experts” say so then it MUST both be an 1) honest report of findings, and 2) objectively correct facts. Opinion changed. Boom done.
Just kidding.
Thats stupid, and even if they are real and think so, I think they are stupid then lol.
Banning phones means banning phones. It’s hard for kids to sneak a brick of bright light when they’re in a classroom of their peers facing the teacher, so noone will be missing out on anything so long as the teachers properly enforce the new rule.
I think it likely that there will be more positive outcomes by forcing children to socialize face-to-face which is natural and especially important at that age.
Your comment essentially boils down to: Some people think we should just let kids do whatever they want and don’t worry about discipline, rules, or things needing a “right place and the right time.” You reek of “millennial/ipad-kid parent” lol.
Of course the mentioned experts (Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk, Zentrum für Digitalen Fortschritt, Gesellschaft für Medienpädagogik, Bundeselternrat in an open letter to the government) based that on studies. Here is one of the meta studies: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/20556365241270394
The answer simply is not as simple as you may think. The judgmental nonsense in the last paragraph doesn’t change that of course.
The potential effect of technology and distractions on undergraduate students’ concentration
Results: The results revealed that ringing cell phones in the class were the most commonly reported electronic external distractor for 68% of students, and 21% of them reported being extremely distracted by this noise. Having an instructor who is difficult to understand was the most commonly reported external behavioral distractor for 75% of students, and 48% of them rated this as extremely distracting. Students talking in class were the most self-produced distractor for 72% of students; negatively impacting their concentration and ability to learn, and 42% of them rated it as an extreme distractor. Wearing clothing with unusual words, drinking and eating in the classroom were minimally distracting colleagues. Overall, distractions (internal and external) were more significant for fifth-year students than the other years at a p-value < 0.001.
Conclusion: Students believed that laptop and cell phone use in the classroom can effect their concentration and ability to learn. The students also felt that inappropriate behavior is a major distraction for students as well, and thus necessitates monitoring and improvement.
Maybe German kids are just built different.
If there is an emergency the school refuses to report (or worse; them creating a situation), that is not the case.
What?? What absurd scenario are you referring to? What situation could they create that would require the kids to have phones to “handle it themselves” instead of finding the nearest adult teacher/admin and getting help?
So if there is an earthquake or something, you expect to connect through the school phone number? Yeah right.
If there’s an earthquake — I hope people/children are more concerned about getting to safety rather than calling mommy and telling her that they are about to die because rather than get to safety they got distracted by their phone calling her.
After the earthquake, if it’s catastrophic, the parents know where the kids are. Hint: AT THE FUCKIN’ SCHOOL. And they will likely need to go pick them up anyways.
What kind of stupid thought process led you to believe you’re making some sort of intelligent point here? Get real, touch grass.
Like many other forms of addiction, the reflexive need to have a screen on hand can become its own font of excuses.
But a lot of these read like the anti-seatbelt and bike-helmet propaganda I used to see back in the 1980s. "No, there's a secret danger, you don't understand. I have a right to do what I want, you can't stop me. My obscure, thinly sourced anecdote says doing things doesn't work."
They were allowing kids to use phones in classrooms up to that point...?
When I went to school, if you were seen with your phone out during class it was confiscated until the end of the day. And back then all you could use them for was texting anyway haha.
Anything that might distract from the lesson would be treated the same way, that's just basic sense for any teacher.
Why would teachers stop caring about phones in classrooms, especially given how famously addictive and problematic to attention etc we now know them to be?
Here in the US most schools gave up trying to ban phones in the 2010's.
There is no evidence that restrictive school policies are associated with overall phone and social media use or better mental wellbeing in adolescents. The findings do not provide evidence to support the use of school policies that prohibit phone use during the school day in their current form
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(25)00003-1/fulltext
Well that just seems like a bad study. If restricting phone use at school doesnt actually lower phone use at school then that just means the school didnt enforce the rules...
Thats whate they are saying with that first sentence right? Restrictive rules are not associated with phone use. Thats only possible if the rules arent being applied.
Adolescents attending schools with restrictive, compared to permissive policies had lower phone (adjusted mean difference −0.67 h, 95% CI −0.92 to −0.43, p = 0.00024) and social media time (adjusted mean difference −0.54 h, 95% CI −0.74 to −0.36, p = 0.00018) during school time, but there was no evidence for differences when comparing usage time on weekdays or weekends.
There is no evidence that restrictive school policies are associated with overall phone and social media use
That means they use the word "overall" to mean "out of school" in a study about school rules. Bravo.
The correct wording would be:
There is no evidence that restrictive school policies are associated with overall phone and social media use outside of school
The Lancet is one of the most respected journals of them all - and this is the largest and most scientifically valid study done on mobile phone use in schools.
Try again?
Finland did the same this autumn and all for it.
Good!
As a teacher from a country that passed a similar law a few months ago: this is stupid, it won't work unless you get parents involved. Also, it offloads the parenting responsibility to already overworked teachers. You know a law that could actually be more effective? Ban the use of social media for those below 18. Another one? Make the use of parental controls mandatory for people below 18. This kind of law may only work if it's implemented together with other changes where it's possible to spread the responsibility over the issue across many layers. If all you're doing is relying on schools and teachers, all this law will do is to contribute even more to the high levels of burnout teachers have. Can we please force parents to actually have to parent their fucking kids??
Ban the use of social media for those under 18? You should move to the UK.
Banning social media for people under 18 years old also offload parenting works to the government and corporations, this will impact everyone privacy and sincerely I'd rather keep my privacy even if I don't use corporate social media.
Your second suggestion is appealing, why we don't put cameras in people houses to see if they comply and if they don't straight to jail.
Also we make special routers that enforce parental control unless you provide an id or you are capable enough to allow specific devices to go on blacklisted websites, and you must have one if you have kids, at the store the guy at the counter will ask for your id and will have all of your relatives ages, the same will apply with ISP.
I'm sorry you are overworked but I'm pretty sure that unless you have to search kids backpacks in your specific instance you can make it like my teachers and professors managed to do 15 years ago.
How does this work? Well you spot a cellphone and you get it from the kid, you don't spot one you go about with your lesson, you have shitty kids and you fear them and their parents? Let em use the phone and have them fail the year or I don't know maybe its not the job for you but its not like you have to do double work to confiscate a phone.
Also kids will have cellphones no matter what, they will have it to call home and for emergencies, so parents involved in what? A good parent dont want their kid to use it during the lesson, but they don't know better, many of them dont know how to set parental control or if it even exist.
Sorry if this come across as harsh, but I'm more tired then you to have my freedom stripped away for children and stupid teens.
People under 18 shouldn't be on social media, at all. It's incredibly bad for them, as proven by many many studies. You don't need to lose your liberties for this, I guarantee you that google/apple know most people's age from their super vast data collection based on how much people overshare online. All it takes is to force these giant companies to actually enforce the use of their own technologies, and for governments to spread awareness on how and why to use them, passing a law making it mandatory and part of parental duties is just an icing on the cake that can be used by schools to demand that parents parent their kids.
As a teacher, I do mind taking a student's phone away, as I don't think the phone itself is the problem, but what they're doing with it. And the best approach is not to simply shun the device, but to learn and foster how to use such a powerful tool as a potentiator of education. Banning devices is stupid because it's the easy way out, the lazy choice. It has been done since I was a kid and all some of us had were brick phones that could call our parents and maybe play simple games. And It has never worked, I know because I often would play games under the desk and my classmates would also often use their phones for games or sms. And today, even if you force kids to hand their phones in at the entrance, or lock them away, they can easily have a backup old phone to hand in instead of their actual phones. And this all comes back to parents. Where are kids getting phones? Why are they being allowed to stay their whole day in them? Because parents don't want to parent, and governments don't want to do what's actually right but hard, so they all decided that it's easier to shift the responsibility for controlling device use onto teachers and schools and pretend the problem is solved. It's not.
Yeah I agree kids should not be on social media its bad for them, they get brainwashed and all I agree 100%.
What i dont agree on is giving apple and google more power I also think they shouldn't have the data you mention, they should be fined heavily and imprisoned for gathering anybody data for any reason, I dont trust any corporation or government with my data, if it was for me these corporation tech would be banned.
What you are asking is governments and corporation to use the Chinese model on us, we ain't far from that weather you are in Europe or in the USA, this is a privacy loss for adults too in the name of children again, if you enforce what you are talking about the very platform we are discussing on right now would stop existing, just look at what some admins say about the chat control law in the EU or how the UK are now banned from virtually all Lemmy instances for doing to exactly what you are talking about.
This will put on little websites and platform the weight of handling your personal real data, I would rather see a law that ban corporations complex algorithms on social media completely so at least kids won't be targeted by algorithms for their insecurities or be manipulated systematically.
And its not stupid for government to not act on this its just lazy to ask to enforce for digital IDs on each and every platform instead of seeing the big picture, which is all corporations social medial are cancer and shouldn't exists at all, American social media are made to sell you crap and make you insecure or angry, Chinese social media are brainwashing camps who also try to sell you crap, and yes there are valid creators on those platform that make educative or interesting content I could name you a lot of them but we both know they are not reaching kids.
In brief what should be targetes if anything is corporate social media algorithms, their ads and held accountable harmful creators for example the Tate brothers and other idiots, we should stop allowing data collection like its worth nothing and stop thinking that checking on everyone private data is OK in the name of the children.
And at last do you really think these parents won't load their own adult digital id on these brats phones ?
why is it offloaded to the teachers? Why aren't phones treated like guns in the school?
I didn't think it would be a problem in other countries outside the US. It's probably the same everywhere now where kids have no respect for teachers. That's the only reason I can think of aside from maybe cheating for why this would even be a problem anywhere outside the US.
When will governments learn that banning things they don't like only serves to make the thing they don't like become a bigger problem for them? This will never work. The students will protest, and the government will eventually rollback the mandate.