Let's just ban smartphones all together, if you want to send a tweet use T9 like the ancients.
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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Yeah! Kids shouldn't have different rules than adults! Same rules for all ages!
Sincerely,
The Pedophiles
And the tobacco industry. And the gamling industry.
And the mining industry
Hopefully only smart phones. I don't care what the school says, my kid will have a flip phone or something so they can contact me and take pics and video. Like everyday a new grooming case comes out and they want less surveillance?
Sounds good, we should let kids drink and smoke pot then right. You can drive a car at any age, any age person can buy cigarettes. No more age restrictions on games and movies...
Staff at schools are adults, many of which are responsible for the lives of other living humans. The critics must all have the maturity of school children.
I said this before: I know schools that do not have cell phone bans yet the students simply don't use them. Its called engagement and respect, and teaching kids appropriate use.
I think considering laws like this says more about a broken education system (or lack of parenting) than a cell phone problem.
Well, we have to fill our prisons somehow.
What better way than a new felony Use of Instagram law. School Resource Officers may even get to use their tasers on children more often, resulting in free training at no taxpayer expense!
Don't be silly, we simply need to ban phones for adults and we'd solve a BUNCH of other problems too...
I actually would argue this is a fair comparison though. Phones are for contact with others unlike the other things you mentioned they can also be very helpful in an emergency. A teacher will want to contact their family to let them know they are safe just the same as a student would. I think that's where the real issue is. We have so many school shootings and parents want to be able to connect with their children in those situations. It may be distracting for learning but at the end of the day as a parent the school shootings are alarming and no one is doing anything about it and this makes it seem scarier from that perspective. No one is even addressing that part of it
As a parent I'd rather have my child not districted by a phone in an emergency. My child will be safest in those situations if the staff contact the authorities and the kids are focused on following their instructions. In both situations, phone or no phone, there's nothing I can do until the situation is over.
Edit: and using the threat of school shootings yo ruin school for most children when so few schools will ever be in that situation is absurd. Those parents should put more of their energy into gun control and thr availability and affordability of mental health treatment.
Yeah the authorities in texas showed how great of a job they do right?
It's not the threat of a shooting that's ruining it it's the actual shootings dude
You sound like you think people have significant 'control' over 'kids' buying and consuming cannabis, alcohol, and cigarettes, etc. ... Kids already consume cannabis and alcohol and cigarettes etc. even though you pretend you 'don't let them' (threaten them) and harrass them. Prohibition from alcohol to cannabis, for example, has not reduced consumption, but rather reduced supply, increased prices, and decreased quality. Repression tells consumers you hide value on the other side of your unilateral decree. On the other hand, instead of a facsist authoritarian totalitarian approach of repression, in comparison, an approach with education, legalization and decriminalization has reduced prevalence of consumption of drugs, including amongst kids; for example, Portugal has decriminalized all drugs (in ~2001); they offer drug consumers education and treatment instead of incarceration and difficult to verify products from difficult to verify producers and sellers in dark places. But the big billionaire homicidal dealers (Merck, Pfizer, United Health Care, etc.) have a lot of monetary incentive of polluting media messaging with muddy murky moral panics like the ones you just put your discursive hands in today. That being said, kids should indeed get education on things like the importance of paying attention in lectures, doing their homework on schedule, secure use of technology, blockading attempts of the feudalist advertising industry of manipulating their opinions, blockading big tech from literally spying on them and selling their opinions and bodies left and right, etc. Fun fact: that problem (cell phone use in course rooms where course work (e.g. lectures and note writing) should occur) has also been having widespread occurence among 'adult' students in university courses.
I'm sorry, is there a massive problem of adult teachers and staff at school being constantly glued to and distracted by their phones such that it prevents them from teaching and doing what they are otherwise there to do?
No?
... Maybe the critics can ask ChatGPT what a false equivalence is.
We had early smart phones back I was in high school.
We also had this rule.
Its fine.
If its not fine, you have an addiction problem, and should seek help.
I agree with you that adults having smart phones is a different problem than children having smart phones.
Here's where you lose me. The critique isn't that adults are distracted. The critique is that being a role model means modeling the same behavior and showing by doing. That is the argument I see disengenuously misrepresented in this comment section again and again. That is a separate argument from adults have a problem with using their phones at inappropriate times during the work day/adults are addicted to their phones.
I can also unilaterally state that smart phones are also addictive for adults and are also bad for our mental health and well being.
The fact is, adults absolutely do have problems with staying on task and avoiding their phones during the work day. I see this in the field I work in and in other fields. This is so prevalent there are whole industries where its common to see "no mobile devices allowed in vehicles" stickers and decals on work trucks.
Oh, well, most adults being paid to pefrom their role, their tasks and duties, at a job, most of them are essentially de facto capable of role modelling proper phone usage, otherwise they'd be fired.
You just don't use it while you're actively working, you know, actively engaged in the act of teaching a lesson, overseeing a lab day, etc.
If a teacher was constantly on their phone, while they're supposed to be teaching, they'd get reported and reprimanded and eventually fired.
This isn't disingenuous, to hold this assumption... this is how things have worked for a long time.
Yeah, yeah a construction or transport crew should also have restrictions on distracted driving or otherwise operating a multi ton vehicle, yes, same as a forklift operator.
They should be fired if they egregiously violate safety protocols.
Systems exist and have existed to do this.
The problem that is going on in schools is that a combination of over-exhausted and underpaid teachers, combined with incompetent/corrupt admins have just looked the other way on this for so long that its become a problem not only in schools, but also all the places those kids who went to those schools go after they've graduated.
The solution is not to equivocate, the solution is having higher standards.
And just to be clear: addictive behaviors and patterns start in adolescence, and then progress and worsen and broaden when they are not identified and addressed.
This is ... very widely the consensus of all kinds of studies into all kinds of addiction.
So having teachers model proper usage of the useful but potentially very addictive device... is arguably the most important area of society to do this with.
If you want a society that isn't constantly distracted by their rectangles... you should exemplify to them how to properly use the rectangles from a young age.
I took the headline to mean the critics of the law were saying they don't want teachers to be allowed to have cell phones on the job. I wonder if a lot of the commenters here took it the exact opposite way (teachers and students should be allowed to have cell phones, rather than teachers and students should both be banned from having cell phones in schools).
I think that may be where the crisscross is.
Sure, we give the kids alcohol, let them drive, let them vote- wait we don't!? What do you mean there's always been these kinds of differences!?
I wonder if some of those critics are by an odd coincidence funded by phone related entities.
I suspect it would be more likely social media companies.
BTW a bit unrelated (unless it is social media companies behind it), in the comments I saw somebody against the ban mentioning school shootings and worrying about not having contact with their child. I think banning smart phones and allowing "dumb" ones would be a good compromise for that specific issue.
There's nothing new about children and adults being treated differently.
Their brains are literally not fully developed. Some facets of life they're literally ill-equipped to handle and policies should reflect that.
If you're a teenager reading this, consider.
There are a few adults who are saying that teens should have unrestricted access to the internet.
Look and you'll see that most of them are getting money from you being on the net.
All kids are anarchists until radicalized with capitalism.
However, it isn't 2012 anymore and the kid of today has no real autonomy outside of forced, walled gardens. Most will never see a laptop that isn't chained up.
To anyone saying kids will rebel and fix the issue themselves,... with what?
In our day, we had a PC in the house and freely available resources everywhere, and 3-4 years of World of Warcraft to introduce us to computers.
Most will never see a laptop that isn’t chained up
Windows is incredibly unwieldy but one thing it is not is that it’s not chained up
i use arch btw you clanker :3
It’s not about role modeling. It’s about learning and attention spans.
Yeah, but explain that to the children, especially young ones.
I do teaching, and when I set rules about not using phones during class - I put mine to the pile too. You can present the most compelling argument ever, but there's a much higher chance it's gonna reach fifth graders if you actually practice what you preach, and show the example of self-discipline, otherwise it will feel dishonest or unfair to kids, because they're kids.
With that in mind, take them from the adults too lol. I know some adults who are chronically online
The adults already have a job. They’re fine.
The students can’t even read anymore because they’re dumb as rocks.
Same with adults. lol
Yes, we have different rules for kids and adults. Does anyone want to argue that we shouldn't? Really? Let's hear it.
I take it the argument that kids need their phones to be safe at school has been completely debunked? Otherwise, they'd use that one, like parents have since this whole fiasco started.
To anyone old enough to remember when schools didn't allow personal phones, because they didn't exist, the idea that they should be allowed is ludicrous. Same for allowing food, or chit-chat, or kids to get up and wander around the class during instruction, or all the other stupid shit that goes on now in schools, from what I've read.
I couldn't agree more.
It's high time we stop discriminating against elementary school aged kids. There's no good reason why they shouldn't be allowed to drive themselves to school, or to their after school job.
Stop ageism and enable independent transportation and employment for all ages!
If the kids don't have their phone how will they broadcast the next school shooting to their followers or ask ChatGPT what the best hiding spot is nearby?
They'll do it anyways.
Funny how that doesn't apply to literally anything else
Adults are more responsible than children. Responsibility comes with privileges.
Adults are more responsible than children. Responsibility comes with privileges.
uhhh you must not be in the states...
sooooo apply the same rules to the adults? here's my old man yells at cloud moment but you don't need your cell phone in school. I got through my entire schooling without one, teachers didn't have one. if there was an emergency or you needed to make a call well that's what the front office was for.
I mean hell in high school kids just had pagers and if a teacher caught you looking at it during class they'd just take it away.
Things can literally go back to this with zero negative consequences. The only parents that are upset about this are the ones with deeply co-dependent relationships with their kids. My wife is a teacher and when her school briefly had kids put their phones in pouches, a lot of her students told her they felt relief from feeling like they have to check their phone constantly. This ban will help with teacher burnout too. Teachers spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get their students to put their phones away. It should have been put into law years ago. Also, the teachers don't have time to check their phone during class, so the comment about role modeling is complete bullshit.
a lot of her students told her they felt relief from feeling like they have to check their phone constantly.
There is something deeply messed up about this. I see people do that and I cannot understand it at all. Or getting a text, like it will be there an hour from now or even tomorrow when I get around to reading it.
I bring this up because just today I saw people trying to teach seniors (over 55 years old) how to let go checking on their phones all the time.
Seems like a human condition problem, so how do we help people learn not to feel this way?
Also: I know some schools that allow cell phones, they are just another tool after all. The kids don't really use them much because they are expected to be present for class, not wasting time on the phone. It helps A LOT that their class sizes range from 8 to 12 kids. Partnering kids with each other, and constant engagement during class seams to really help.
You mean the kids will habe to interact at lunch time? This will be a net benefit to them.
I turn my phone off , or at least, don't answer it when I'm getting paid to do something else.
Are 'critics'' in conntucut defrauding their employers, or do they just not have real jobs?
lol this has to be bait. Employee wage theft is highest theft by a long shot.
Not at all. I believe in organised collective bargaining/protest, not random acts of irreverence. Being unprofessional and as lackadaisical the bosses just gives them excuses to sack you.
If you're going to strike, get a fucking picket, and make them bosses know it. Don't just wank around on your phone and prove that you can be replaced by AI, or an empty chair.
Also, I'm quite adequately compensated for my current job, it's more the band 3,or 4's that I'd need to go on strike for. If my union wasn't a useless bunch of cunts.