Try speaking to any young person these days and you’ll usually find them engrossed on their smartphone. Fearing children were losing their ability to socialise, French politicians have passed a “detox” law.
Here a parent and an academic debate whether we could learn lessons from across the Channel. Would banning phones from schools in this country be a miracle for attention spans in the classroom or a backwards step?.
Here a parent and an academic debate whether we could learn lessons from across the Channel. Would banning phones from schools in this country be a miracle for attention spans in the classroom or a backwards step?.
Mobile phones have no place in schools and I applaud the ban on French students using them on school grounds. Many UK headteachers have imposed an unofficial ban since they were given the right to confiscate items from pupils in 2007. But I would be happy to see the law changed so they were forbidden in all schools here. Children need to be able to disconnect from the digital world that is such a big part of their lives.
From the moment they wake up for many, it is the first thing they see as they use them as alarm clocks to the time they go to bed, children are connected to social media, games and YouTube and many don’t have the maturity to switch off. Let’s face it, most adults don’t know when to switch off. I reluctantly gave my 12-year-old son my old smartphone. It’s a decision I regret. It is the cause of so many arguments in our house. There are regular rows about why he can’t have an Instagram or Snapchat account when “all of his friends have it”. I’m made to feel guilty that he is missing out, but so far, I have stood my ground. I caved in to his request to download the video game Fortnite, the latest online craze and every spare minute he gets is spent playing the game with his friends, virtually. I’d rather he read a good book. Evenings can be stressful, and I usually end up switching off the broadband.
If he could, he’d play “just one more game” for hours. And why wouldn’t he? These games encourage users to keep playing. These days children hang out with their friends in the digital world rather than in the real world. No wonder childhood obesity is rising. Mobile phones have made our lives easier, but they’ve also caused issues for young people. Scientists at the University of Korea in Seoul found children addicted to their phones were more likely to have mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. A study by the London School of Economics in 2015 found that a ban on mobiles in schools had the effect of giving pupils an extra week’s education over a year. Test scores rose 6%. With so much evidence about the negative impact of phones on children, banning them in schools is the only sensible thing to do.
Before we rush to follow the French government’s decision, we need to ask a really simple question: what are schools for? If we think they are about teaching our children to deal with the world and make the best of it, then banning smartphones makes little sense. We’d never dream of not teaching road safety, stranger danger or healthy eating in school. As so many parents know, the internet is where children spend so much time interacting with the outside world for good and evil. In the 11 years since Apple released the iPhone, the world has changed totally. Children socialise and learn online through phones. And our schools need to be on the frontline of making sure they are able to use the internet safely and productively. More than that, a school needs to be a place where we teach them about how to use technology politely knowing when they should and shouldn’t answer their phone or reply to a message. Then there’s the reality that schools can’t afford all the tech they need.
So it seems bonkers not to take advantage of the fact that young people have computers in their pockets, often more powerful than the ones sitting in classrooms. Mobile phones aren’t just for texting or Whatsapping children can use them to do research, to write stories and to learn how to create and edit video, and build communities.
Children are already doing this outside school, surely we should be recognising their skills and creativity in it? parents often struggle to keep up with how their children are using technology. By making phones part of our education system we can offer peace of mind and involve parents in understanding what their son or daughter is doing while staring at a screen. Rather than banning phones from schools, we need to make them much more a part of the school day. Encompassing smartphone use into the curriculum at school could mean youngsters are better equipped to make the most of technological changes that will define their future.