To be shocked that 97% of 12 years olds have smart phones?

[Rhayader]

My DCs school does not allow smartphones and most of the schools around here are the same. The kids all have Nokias (and often an AirTag or similar for tracking).

I can’t believe it’s 97%! Am I totally out of touch? She’s never even asked for a phone.

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/23/children-who-dont-have-smartphones

I understand the principle behind this but where education is organised and delivered using Apps, what is the impact on schools, are they realistically going to drop all of these methods.

@Goldenbear yes I believe the mental wellbeing of children is more important than school apps. There are studies coming out that show how vulnerable children’s brains are to these screens, how they are changed and affect attention and mental wellbeing. Also the risk of seeing awful things online when the brain isn’t developed yet is a high and once seen can never be unseen. There are long term effects to all this.

That is quite a sizemic change though and requires schools to revert back to delivering pre smart phone era. So for example, my DD's school would have to be totally reorganised digitally in terms of reporting sickness, the canteen system for food purchasing scrapped, lots of subjects homework scrapped, reverting to textbooks or worksheets - don't think they have the money for photocopying all of this. The communication system is an app. Parents evening is an app. My eldest is at 6th form and it would actually be easier as not as reliant on apps but the big one is the dashboard where everything is communicated.

@Goldenbear my friends school is similar to what yours sounds like. However the school make accommodations for her daughter as they have no iPads or smartphones (they cant afford this expensive tech it as a family). They do have one family laptop which they do school app stuff on so it’s really not an issue. I’m not anti screens but there’s something particularly bad about smart phone use in children. It’s really not necessary

Yes but if you don't have a laptop which is the case for many people and much more prevalent than not (problematic in COVID times) then the smartphone really is the only device to access this educational set up on. Your friend would be accommodated as it is one person but a school doesn't have the budget to do this for everyone.

@Goldenbear you know these apps aren’t free for schools and cost lots of money anyway. I stand by putting children’s mental health above school systems. Systems can be changed

I'm not against the idea I'm just wondering how it would practically work as it would need a huge psychological shift in the way schools are run at all the secondary schools I know so I'm just doubtful that would happen but who knows maybe if some solutions were workable it would be easier than imagined.

Yes you're being quite naive. I can see you've said you were in the US, but there's been a growing and growing campaign to have Smartphone Free Childhoods etc etc, and lots of debate about how schools should ban phones. And surely they wouldn't be having that debate unless there was a problem?

This article is good https://www.thetimes.com/article/1100fdd2-79b1-4dc5-88e6-de87d2319294?shareToken=9ebc7793f3d212ca7aaea87174044798 (hope the share token works)

I'm in London too and a local academy trust bans smartphones (kids are expected to have a brick or nothing, but most have a smartphone at home). Other state schools are less good at banning - trying to say phones must be off, not seen, not heard, but the consequences are much less (given back at end of the day, whereas academy trust gives them back at the end of the term).

FWIW I think the issue is about social media use, and parents not understanding what their kids are up to, but that's for another thread! Also not having rules about screen time. Like the Sunday Times experiment, look up Panorama on the BBC, Can We Live Without Our Phones - worth watching.

In my mind though it isn't just about access to a smartphone, the level of digital of information on a child, their behaviour whether good or bad, what they eat, their attendance, their health and wellbeing, all captured data and retained for years, this level of surveillance on children is extremely damaging but is not considered so, it isn't just about smartphones, they aren't the only thing that is damaging young people's mental health and happiness.

I'd expect almost all kids to have a phone once they go to secondary and the vast majority of those to be smart phones. So no I am not surprised at all.

My y7 has a Nokia and my y10 got a smartphone at the start of y9. But he only has WhatsApp, no social media. I think social media is brain poison and you'd have to be insane to give it to your kids. School homework apps can be checked at home on the laptop. This is to me is parenting. Following the herd because you think everyone else has one strikes me as insane.