Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration (fortune.com)

Students at a California high school are getting less screen time since the school implemented a ban on cellphone use during the school day. From a report: After one teacher at San Lorenzo High School brought pouches, created by the tech start-up Yondr, into her classroom to lock away students' phones, the entire school began using them from the beginning of the school day at 8 a.m. until the end of the day at 3:10 p.m. According to a 2018 study from the Pew Research Center, more than half of teens said they felt loneliness, anxiety, or upset in the absence of a cellphone. The study also found that girls were more likely to feel these sentiments than boys.

"If something feels weird about modern life to young kids who are dealing with a lot of angst and anxiety in general, maybe it has something to do with relating to the world primarily through a screen eight hours a day," Yondr's founder Graham Dugoni told CNBC. Students said they initially felt awkward and annoyed having their phones taken away during the school day, but added that they started to see more teens interacting with each other. One student added that not having a phone in class helped with concentration.

Comments

Nice advertisment

[110010001000]

Nice advertisement for "tech startup" Yondr. I thought tech startups stopped the "drop the last vowel thing" a while ago.

Why a pouch?

[b0s0z0ku]

Just require students to keep them in their lockers (existing tech) for the duration of school. Privacy concerns can be addressed by locked/encrypted phones. Theft may be a problem, but that's an argument for not buying Buffy and Brittany a $1000 e-leash. But ... what about an emergency? Students survived for decades without phones in class...

Re:Why a pouch?

[110010001000]

That's what schools do. Or they just tell the students to turn it off and put it in their existing backpack. But Yondr paid some school to use their bags and they are going to get a mention on Fortune. It is the "new journalism".

Re:Why a pouch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Schools do not have the right to deprive people of the ability to communicate.

The fuck they don't. Students are there to learn, not to text others. Don't like it, homeschool and graduate early.

Re:Why a pouch?

[Aristos Mazer]

There's a principle called "in loco parentis" in US law that says, yes, schools do have exactly the right to limit student communications. It's why schools can have things like detention. In most US states, they have rights to do most of what a parent could do (most limits are on physical punishments). The Supreme Court has ruled explicitly on the ability to limit the First Amendment rights of students -- the school has to have strong reason to do so, but it can be done, and speech that disrupts the classroom is acceptable reason.

Good.

[Rick Schumann]

I hope more schools do this. Wean them off smartphones and their addiction to them.

ONE STUDENT said it helped with concentration

[ljw1004]

Bad headline: "Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration"

(1) Only one student reported that it helped with concentration. There was no indication that it actually does help with concentration.

(2) There was no indication that "helping with concentration" was the motive for the school doing it

(3) The article only mentioned one school; I don't know where the headline got the plural "schools".

(That said, I personally believe that phones are bad for concentration, and indeed my children's school also bans phones. I just want to see actual defensible data. Not a dumb article designed as click-bait to reinforce some people's prejudices and raise the ire of those who disagree with it.)

Re:ONE STUDENT said it helped with concentration

[shess]

Phones can be disruptive in class. Also, it is disrespectful to the teacher to be paying attention to a device rather than the teacher. Students should be required to leave their phone turned off and in their locker during the school day. I also think that most kids would benefit from spending at least two weeks a year at a summer camp where no phones or other electronic devices are allowed. I also think that kids under 13 should NOT have a phone. If helicopter parents think that their kids must have a phone before that age, it should be a flip phone without Internet or texting capabilities.

Far too many people of all ages spend far far too much time with their attention glued to a "smart" phone instead of paying attention to the people and events around them!

Did this response set out to prove that cellphones aren't the only cause of poor reading comprehension?

Yay!

[rnturn]

But here come the arguments/complaints about one's "right" to have their digital toy with them at all times in 3... 2...

Re:Yay!

[dwywit]

Remember, when you resort to personal attacks and name-calling, you weaken your own argument, not the other person's.

See, I thought your original post had some flaws, but I didn't resort to calling you names, I addressed your arguments. Perhaps you're not so secure in your own position, when you have to lash out at those who disagree.

tech start-up?

[BlackOverflow]

A "tech start-up Yondr" makes bags to hold phones? Ummm... that's hardly a tech company. At best, it's a packaging company.

Re:Phones Not Allowed On Premises

[Anonymous Coward]

A magnet school is a high school that has a specialized rather than a generic curriculum. There are public and private magnet schools, designed to attract students with more narrowly defined, specific interests - hence the name "magnet" school.

Of course, there is always the law that says everything on the Internet is suspect.

Symptoms of Addiction

[Zorro]

If someone feels this in abcence of Alcohol they are called an Alcoholic.

If someone feels this in abcence of a drug they are called a Drug Addict.

It is the SAMETHING!

Re:Good

[fermion]

No one is going to take thier phones away in college. In college all they will do is take their tuition and fees then kick them out when they fail the year the kids will still have to pay student loans until they die.

At thier first real job they will not have thier phones taken away. They will be fired and escorted out. When they get another job they will have a bad reference.

At school, especially high school, kids have to be taught to use thier devices to succeed. They have to run searches, calculators, simulations to learn thier devices are not just toys. This was the problem with 1990 kids. Computer were video games and they never learned to leverage for profit.

In lower grades, take away phones like you take away all toys, but in later grades there is no good done if you don’t let student fall, learn why they fall, and get up. If they are failing because they cannot get off their phone, they have to deal with this organically. Schools hav3 to teach, not live in fear

It is parents who need to manage time. Kids need sleep, so they maybe need thier phones taken away at night. Kids need more time to process than adults, so having kids fighting with thier freinds all night or being bullied or never having any alone time is likely going to lead to depression and maybe even thoughts of suicide. But school cannot do this. It is the parents who bought them the phone and pay the bills.

Ban in France

[manu0601]

France banned phones in school up to 9th grade. Children complained of course, but they survived after all.