Banning cellphones in school is counterproductive

Some school districts across the country, and, in particular, Florida, have begun banning cellphone usage in school — not just in classrooms, but also during breaks, lunches and any time during the school day. While this policy existed while many current SHS students were at Redwood Middle, the rationale behind the moves is outdated and offers no significant benefit.

Though many people would love to believe otherwise, society is inevitably becoming more reliant on technology. The pandemic only further pushed schools toward favoring online assignments over paper use.

Even before this, the Board of Trustees acknowledged this shift by approving a “Bring your Own Device” policy in 2019, requiring students to bring in their own technology such as laptops or tablets to use throughout the school day. 

While the outcomes of this policy are controversial, the main idea stands: In education today, it’s almost impossible for students to complete assignments without technology. For instance, all classwork and homework have a degree of dependency on the Canvas learning management system in some shape or form, and students often need their phones to scan work to upload onto the site.

Cellphones are essentially minicomputers — there’s no real point in taking them away and claiming they will improve behavior and engagement unless you ban technology entirely within a school, which isn’t realistic.

While teachers in Florida claim they have seen benefits in student engagement and behavior, I highly doubt the ban is as effective as they are making it out to be, and if so, the results are short-term — at least some students will start to bring in burner phones, and the lack of access to their cellphones during school hours will only drive students to check their phones more outside school hours.

As Class of ‘23 alumnus George Huang detailed in an article earlier this year, a lack of access to technology was actually counterproductive in reducing his usage of technology. Having Apple’s Screen Time feature enabled for him throughout high school impeded his ability to develop self-control when it came to his phone. Like Huang, most students would probably make up for the time not spent on their phones during lunch or break at school by catching up after school hours at home.

Taking students’ phones away during the school day fails to provide them with a chance to develop responsibility — in college and beyond, they will need to be able to regulate their usage of technology and social media without administrators snatching their phones away and banning sites on WiFi, but this can only be effectively learned early while students are developing good habits with technology in high school.

Most students at SHS also often spend more time on their laptops than their phones. The devices are interchangeable: Everything that students do on phones can be done on laptops and more. Florida teachers claim texting was too much of a distraction when students had access to their phones — but I assure you, I can use iMessage just as well on my laptop (which is impossible to get rid of in schools), if not better since there is the added benefit of being able to type faster.

There really isn’t probable cause to claim that taking phones away during lunches and breaks will increase student interactivity: If I’m not in the mood to speak to someone, I’m not going to suddenly become chatty if I didn’t have my phone on me. Cell phones simply offer increased convenience, and it’s not as though most teens are so socially inept that they will text someone two feet away from them before they actually open their mouths and engage in human conversation.

The crackdown on students who do use their cell phones because of these bans is also a waste of time that school staff could be using more efficiently. If students want to go on their phones, they will — it’s not hard at all to spend your entire lunch in the bathroom or bring in a fake phone to hand in. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

The ban also raises safety concerns: How can students get help if they find themselves in an uncomfortable or dangerous situation if they don’t even have access to technology? A lot can happen in a 7-hour school day, and being cut off from everything in the outside world isn’t exactly a good thing.

As much as people want to wean students off their phones and claim it comes with many social benefits, it’s simply not realistic. We’re far into the Digital Revolution, and the outdated thinking behind such decisions will cause more harm than good to teens’ ultimate need to learn to work effectively with technology.