Exploring The Pros And Cons Of School Smartphone Bans
Some forms of the common prohibition have been around for more than 30 years.
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Subscribe for free to get more stories like this directly to your inboxWhile smartphones have become ubiquitous throughout modern society in recent years, there’s one place where their use is generally not permitted: school classrooms. On the surface, it might make sense to implement bans to cut down on cyberbullying, distractions, cheating, etc., but a growing number of experts say school administrators should reconsider.
The anti-ban argument
A number of nations, including Italy and China, are enforcing universal prohibitions on phone use during instruction periods. And several U.S. jurisdictions have implemented their own versions of such bans.
Some form of restriction is currently in place for students in roughly one-fourth of all the countries on Earth. But there are some exceptions, particularly for students with special needs or in cases for which teachers believe the devices can provide an educational benefit.
But after more than three decades of increasing scrutiny over the use of phones in class, critics say there are some compelling reasons to scale back those bans. Here are some of the reasons they provide:
- Bans can negatively impact students who have jobs or other responsibilities.
- Handing down suspensions for policy violations can set students back academically.
- Cellphones can provide a pivotal form of communication in case of an emergency.
So, what’s the answer?
We’ve already addressed some of the reasons that these bans were implemented in the first place, but there hasn’t been a lot of in-depth research to evaluate how effective they actually are. There was even one U.S. study conducted in 2016 that showed schools with cellphone bans experienced a higher rate of cyberbullying than those without them.
That’s why the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization urges administrators to let students “learn the risks and opportunities” of smartphones, adding: “Shielding students from new and innovative technology can put them at a disadvantage.”
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