this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Smart phones in pockets being a problem is supported by robust psychology research. People do the worst at tasks when phones are on the desk in front of them, worse when phones are in their pockets, and best when phones are left in another room even if the devices are turned off, in all cases. It's even worse if phones are on even without any sort of notification, like vibration. (And, obviously, notifications make things increasingly terrible.)
The research is not at all unclear or anecdotal; it is very strong. Phones are damaging to attention, task completion, and learning. This is established; the only disagreement is to the degree of the effect.
Re: phones in "class", I think we're misunderstanding each other due to terminology. Here, "a class" means a single instruction period. I thought you were for banning use during instruction time, but against phones being fully banned at school, but if you mean "class" to be the entire time from first bell to last bell, then we're in agreement. No smart phones at all during school hours would be a good step.
Hopefully, that might also make parents more aware of the damage smart phones are causing and support a societal move away from giving youth addiction machines.
All research based on smartphones is based on anecdotal evidence.
This is false. There is minimal acceptable evidence that a phone that is online, in a pocket or purse, in a complete silence mode configuration, with no vibration or sound, affects anyone negatively.
All time spent at any K-12 school institution or local country equivalent; including transition time; is considered instructional time. At least it was by any school principal I've ever spoken to, many of whom were holders of American PhDs in education. Laws in all 50 states reflect this typically.
I think children must be taught how to self-regulate with phones for sure. Much like anything and everything; children must be taught how. I personally never struggled with this because all campuses in my home town would confiscate it at least until End of Day. Sometimes they'd attempt to hold the device longer; but that just resulted in parents going to the police and them being forced to return the item. They'd sometimes hold the item until your parent retrieved it however; and that was allowed as long as they returned it the moment the parent requested it. So you really couldn't rely on parents retrieving it too many times.
I did however get the entire district policy hard limited from "on school grounds" to "In building, from bell to bell" because of the aforementioned involvement of police.
Similarly I will point out we had devices like Game Boys and other portable consoles growing up in the 90s.
You're missing the point entirely, I think.
If you want to learn about the research, Jonathan Haidt's book includes links to studies on the effects of cell phones. I don't have time to find the sources for you right now, but you can look there if you want to learn more.
Random book, even one mentioned in the article, along with anecdotes by the author, lists more and better studies than the 1,317 studies scoped by the Queensland University of Technology? Doubt.
The actual analysis itself makes it clear that the research specifically on cell phone bans is lacking. In particular, of the 1317 studies, only 22 were relevant, more than half of which were Master Degree research projects, not peer-reviewed studies. It's fair that the evidence for cell phone bans in schools is inconclusive, but that's because there isn't enough quality reach yet to draw conclusions.
I was actually referring above to studies on cell phones in general for task success, non-specific to schools.