To phone or not to phone…

In England this week, the government have announced new guidance suggesting that all mobile phones should be banned during the school day and teachers should be encouraged not to use theirs in front of students. I have some views on this, so here we go.

A recent study¹ of over 10, 000 12 year olds found that 31% of them were more likely to be depressed than non-phone owning peers, 40% more likely to be obese and 62% have sleep problems. Each of these increased by 10% for each year of smart-phone ownership before the age of 12.

Wow.

The same article mentions this is for non-school work use. There’s also a range of physical problems too, including headaches, dry eyes and of course, posture problems². I wonder if we’re heading for an epidemic of posture problems over the next 5-10 years as young people realise their necks are not meant to be bent at 45 degrees the whole time³.

So is the solution to all of this to ban? I’m really not convinced by that – look at what’s happening in America with banned books, or indeed during prohibition. Banning something rarely helps. Education is far more important. Parental involvement is also key.

It will invariably fall to schools to educate young people on phone use, which is probably fair enough, but what should phone etiquette lessons replace? Any of those knowledge based subjects, where you can just look it up? History. Fuck it. Get rid. No need to study any period of history as it’s already been and gone right? I can look up all the information I need, so why learn about it? Languages? Fuck it. Google translate for the win. Maths? Fuck it. Use an equation solver online. English Literature? Fuck it, get my phone to read the book to me, plus the study notes if I didn’t understand it.

The whole school day could be abolished and we’ll just learn how to use technology better instead. While we’re at it, let’s get rid of those pesky exams⁴. Nobody needs to remember anything anymore, it’s all at our fingertips!

Hopefully, you realise I’m being sarcastic here⁵, but there is a serious question about the value of education when we have more information at our fingertips than at any other point in human history. We should be getting smarter as a species⁶, but all evidence points to the contrary. Perhaps the future of education lies in questioning what we find on-line. From the active questioning of recent events in Minneapolis through to fake trailers that have people frothing at the mouth in excitement, people seem to have lost their ability to think critically.

People have also lost empathy and lose their shit over the most ridiculous of things. I recently saw a post on a local community page that claimed students in a school were taking cocaine, and their teachers were the dealers. Really? Teachers dealing coke? Brings a whole new meaning to the punishment of doing lines. Remember the persistent rumours that Covid was spread by 5G antennas? How do people even begin to believe this shit?

So yeah, maybe schools should be responsible for teaching critical evaluation of ‘evidence’. And I’m in favour of this for all sides of debate, by the way, even if I am a paid up member of the Radical Leftist Scum⁷. Schools could teach people how to disagree without name-calling too. Perhaps our politicians could attend some lessons on how to actually answer the bloody question that was asked.

I digress. I do actually think responsible phone use needs to be taught, but it is not the sole responsibility of schools. Phones are incredibly useful things, but they are designed to sap time. Think about Snapchat and streaks – it actively encourages kids to stay online and use its app. Kids boast about their streaks, some of which are years long.

Parents need to step up and monitor phone use too. Bullying is endemic on social media, and from otherwise ‘nice’ kids too. It is so easy to type things that you would never, ever say to someone’s face. As an example, I posted a while ago about a conversation I’d had with my son. He asked what my favourite Star Wars film was. I said Star Wars, and he said ‘which one?’. We went back and forth for about 30 seconds, until my wife, bored, said ‘he means A New Hope’. This went viral, with the majority of people liking the post and agreeing with me, but it didn’t take long for the trolls to appear.

I got called an abusive father, someone who didn’t love his children, someone who always had to win no matter the emotional cost, etc, etc. Absolutely unbelievable. I showed the responses to my son and we both had a good laugh at these peoples expense. Imagine getting that worked up about someone’s opinion of a film? Someone even said it’s always been called A New Hope, which is disprovable in about 3 seconds. Yay google!

Why does this happen? If people get this angry about films, what do they do when governments start changing laws to suit themselves? What about when people get killed for a difference of opinion, or for protesting peacefully? What about when people deliberately put flags up⁸ to make anyone with a different colour skin feel unwelcome and unsafe? What do people do then? Generally we shrug and scroll on, right? It’s happening to someone else.

Education is the key to everything. Tolerance. Respect for others views. Not being a fascist or racist piece of shit. Learning from the mistakes of the past. Learning empathy. Learning to get along with people who you perhaps don’t actually like⁹. Disagreeing is fine. Name calling and violence is not. It’s pretty simple, but our politicians are leading the way in just insulting the other side¹⁰.

Take a look in a pub or restaurant next time you’re out. How many phones can you see? How many families not talking to each other, but staring at screens instead?

Perhaps we shouldn’t ban phones in schools, but in pubs, restaurants, gigs, cinemas and the theatre instead? Any thoughts on this?

Back to phones in schools. I think we should be looking at how to integrate their use – when is it okay to be on your phone? When is it not? Phones have been an issue in school since day 1. I remember starting an exam with a colleague back in the late 90s. He launched into a big speech about how the kids better not have phones on them, and they’d be in big trouble if they did. Cue a phone going off, top volume.

It was mine. Of course. My ringtone at the time was the Muppets’ theme. Oops.

Until next time.

FOOTNOTES

1. Smartphones Associated with Depression, Obesity, and Poor Sleep in Adolescents | AAP Journal Blogs | American Academy of Pediatrics ↩︎
2. (PDF) Psycho-Physiological Hazards of Mobile Phone Use among Teenagers: A Review of Knowledge and Educational Interventions ↩︎
3. Look at me using proper citations and everything. Makes me feel like a grown up blogger. Could I have found more references? Probably. Could I be arsed? No. ↩︎
4. This actually isn’t a bad idea, but isn’t going to happen. ↩︎
5. If you haven’t realised you probably think Farage would make a great PM. ↩︎
6. The rise of the far right. The climate change deniers. The people who still think “6-7” is funny. ↩︎
7. Trump. The orange shit-gibbon. ↩︎
8. I still need someone to explain slowly how this makes you a pAtRiOt. ↩︎
9. An awful lot of bullying is down to intolerance of peoples differences. ↩︎
10. All of them. Watch any clip from the House of Commons – it’s embarrassing. I also think it’s really dangerous to dismiss ALL Reform voters as thick. ↩︎