Swiped - The school that banned mobile phones

[chaosmaker]

Watched both episodes and was fairly astounded as to how clueless the presenters were about phone use in children and the sites that can be accessed. Also algorithms.

The children in the experiment were 12 with smartphones that they spent hours on and this seemed to stop them doing things they should be doing at 12 like playing and socialising in person.

I'm just interested in why people just don't give their children dumb phones if they think they need them. The studies on brain development seem to point to traits that can be present in ND so given that fact, I'm wondering if that is correlated with so much SEN and ND diagnoses in children.

It's an interesting programme and worth watching just for the science bits if nothing else. Also for how the children themselves felt during the 21 days they didn't have their phones and other devices for.

Reasonable - children should only have dumb phones and parents could make this a cultural shift en masse

Unreasonable - children need to learn social media at any cost and must have tech.

I have two children who have had phones since year 4. They are now 10 and 13.

Neither of my children get distracted in class. They both focus very well. They are both very well behaved. In fact because my youngest is very good in school he's often seated.next to more distractible children (some of whom don't own phones).

I really don't think phones have anything to do with focus and concentration.

There are bound to be some children who struggle with concentration that happen to have a phone. There will also be lots of children who have phones who have no problems with concentration

As parents we teach our kids how to cope when tech fails. And to be honest, as I am a non driver, mine seem to cope just fine, through lived experience on journeys, which spills over to the ability to problem solve in other areas. (Perhaps we should go car free - not just phone free- to teach independence, problem solving and provide opportunity for daily exercise, but that would be for another thread)

But what generally happens is that stuff gets more expensive, or more time consuming. It costs 50p more per bus journey if the kids don't use the app but pay on the bus each time.
Their monthly ticket is online, so theyd be buying a (capped) £2 ticket for a tech free single journey home on top of the ticket they already have. They have the cash in the bottom of their school bag for that eventuality.
I'm not spending more than I have to.

on smartphones don’t most schools ban them? My DCs school does and has done for years (state comp) although all their homework is on an app and they do occasionally get asked to use them in class.

How can they ban them, and then also sometimes ask them to use one in class? What a ridiculous policy for the school to have (allowing teachers to ask students to use smart phones in lessons I mean, I think banning them in school is a sensible policy, medical needs aside).

Wow it’s almost as if all children are different.
Mine is also well behaved but has noticed, like many people do, that having a phone affects his concentration. Many adults find this as well. He’s looking to take steps to rectify this.

If you honestly believe that phones don’t affect anyone’s attention at all, then I think you’re totally deluded. Your child may not be (they may be though, how would you know since they had their phones since they were so tiny?) - my older child is less affected, again, as if all children react differently.

Our 2 have smart phones but massively locked down so that they have no browser, no photos, no social media. I switch the browser on as needed for maths homework which is online and they can use maps and I can track them while out (hence not having an actual dumb phone). But smartphones can be locked down to make them pretty much like dumb phones.

DC's school banned smart phones this academic year. Not allowed them in sight when on site; they are no longer asked to use them in class- seems to be working. If confiscated they can be collected at the end of the school day.

A child doesn't need a phone to know there's not enough food on the house or that the house is cold.

They don't need a phone to realise their parents are always working and stressed.

They don't need a phone to know they're going between two houses/families or that one parent (almost always the dad) doesn't want to know.

They don't need a phone to feel shite or overwhelmed in a school that is so stretched for time and resources it crams a packed curriculum in and anyone who struggles gets left behind or chastised.

They don't just not play out as much now because of screens, it's also stuff like less places to go, busier roads, more awareness of dangers (from parents usually) and many adults kicking up a fuss if kids are out even in daylight ours etc.

I agree excessive screens and especially social media definitely have a negative impact, but I also agree with the previous poster, there is way more to our societies issues than "screens".

DD’s school were no phones in school (at all) since before 2016. Technically not even allowed them in bags but as they don’t do bag searches as long as it’s in there and doesn’t draw attention to itself with phone noises then all is ok.

surely just banning them at school will have minimal effect? How will anyone enforce kids not having a phone at all?

Yes they do, we're lucky that we don't have much of a phone problem with students during school hours. They have to be switched off or on silent and students can't get them out or they are confiscated. Teachers are pretty good with professional judgement (I.e. We let them check its on silent or they can use reception to call home etc) so we don't confiscate many at all. Our issues come outside of school- students coming in after a bullying Snapchat incident which then has to be dealt with by us.
I'm sure the teachers will have spotted your DH was on notes, nothing wrong with that (this is what I meant in my post about the good side of a phone). My parent was just messaging and on FB unfortunately.

But are they staying up until 1am every night on their phones? The kids in the programme were.

12 year olds in tears because they can’t get to sleep without their phone!

This is where parents have to step up and parent.

Buy children alarm clocks so at bed time or preferably at least an hour before, the phones are switched off and put in the kitchen or whatever for the night.

Parents can insist on no phones at the dinner table etc.

Parents should check what tick tok / instagram (insert whatever social media) crap their children are using.

The children were getting 300 notifications per day!

Children can use their phones of course they can, but a good parent monitors and helps their child by having rules about use. Parents need to stop being friends with their children and parent them. Nobody is suggesting that is easy, but it is essential.

Children do not need any kind of phone in school and so not need social media. Supervised, time-restricted, age-appropriate internet/app use outside of school can be useful in many ways however the bigger the screen the better (so yes to TV, computer and with caution for phones and tablets).

I watched it with my secondary school aged DC. It opened a lot of conversation about the use of phones, even the sad parts. I did find it interesting as a teacher that the school allowed smart phones to be used in school- in mine, phones are to be off and any phones seen out are confiscated. We do not allow their use at all.

My children got smart phones in Year 6 but I have Family Link on them which means they are restricted to what they can see, I have blocked TikTok and I control how long they are on them. They certainly can't be on at night as they go off.

Restricted use, yes. Total ban, not realistic.

I would be writing to the local MP about the bus tickets. Madness that children are expected to have a smartphone to access school bus tickets.
My 11 year old will not be getting a phone any time soon. I've just made it clear that the negatives outweigh the positives and there is absolutely no need.
I'd rather he learn to ask someone if he gets lost, walk home if he can't contact me, problem solve. I really don't see the harm he can come to on his journey home from school, at the same time as all the other school children. And even if there is a risk, it is smaller than the risks of having a smartphone.
He asked me when he can, and I said Year 9. It will still have lots of restrictions then.

My DDs school doesn’t allow smartphones on site. If a student is caught with a smartphone in their bag (even switched off) it’s confiscated until the end of the full school term (Christmas, Easter, Summer).

Kids live in London so have oyster zip cards, they do have email but it’s something they check at home and the vast majority of homework is pen and paper (maths is the exception being online).

It's no different to giving them an iPad tho all digital devices have the ability to be used on the dark web. It's purely about parent setting appropriate restrictions and maybe a change in attitudes that what happens online isn't real and shouldn't count in real life

I wouldn't give my child an ipad either.

And what are ‘appropriate’ restrictions. Some parents allow Snapchat and TikTok, others won’t. Would it help parents if the government said that TikTok is addling children’s brains and shouldn’t be allowed in under 16s, for example? I understand that it can be difficult to say no to kids when they’re claiming that all their friends have a particular app or game and they’ll feel left out. And some parents are genuinely naive to the problems that these apps are causing (or maybe so addicted to TikTok themselves that they’re normalising it).

Is it the case that governments are in bed with these massive tech companies that they won’t decry using them, even though they know it’s to our detriment?

Tbh I've always been surprised any school allows smart phones in it... none of the state ones round here Greater London allow them in side. Kids have to turn them off at the gate and put away properly ( a lot of kids use public transport to school so message parents safe arrival) phones Can be kept in bag but teacher hearing, seeing even the outline of one is an immediate detention. 3 in a row phone confiscated and parents have to come into school to collect.

I think social media should have an age limit and also the operating symptoms need better bars. Parents are often out of their depth with set ups. I work in tech and as soon as I am setting up new privacy and limits on dc it sends me mad. Ds phone is still not as secure as I would like

In matt and Emma’s defence, the settings aren’t always straightforward.
I consider myself pretty tech savvy, I’ve always used Mac/iPhone, and have to use social media/YT etc for work. When I set up DCs iPhones i mirrored the settings but there have always been anomalies where one DC can access apps the other can’t for no obvious reason. Then on the back of watching the Ch4 program I poked around in settings a bit more and there’s definitely something not working with Screen Time
Limits - I can literally go into a page that shows social media limited to an hour but also shows that DS has also been on SnapChat for over an hour🙄

This reminds me of what used to be said about TV when I was a child. We only had three channels. Not only was it not a 24 hour service, but during the hours it was on, there wasn't continuous programming. Gaps were filled by the test card or 'intermission' stills of autumn scenes or flowers with music. Still, there were concerns about the effect watching TV would have on children.

Now, it's not just the phones. It's Nickelodeon on tap at any hour of the day. It's the kids I work with as a TA speaking in American accents because of all the 'educational' YouTube nursery rhymes/counting/alphabet songs they've been watching since babies.

Phones are just the tip of the multimedia iceberg. And to think people were once worried about the impact 3 channels of intermittent TV might have. It's boggling to think about what's changed in such a short period of time. I am only 50.

I see loads of socially anxious 18 to 24 year olds at work and a common factor is their heavy online gaming habit and nocturnal lifestyle. This definitely was not a thing pre internet as it wasn't possible. Starting this stuff young seems to lead to unhealthy addictive behavior.

I'm just interested in why people just don't give their children dumb phones if they think they need them

I’m guessing you don’t have teenagers as this is a pretty naïve statement. If your child has a dumb phone when all the others have a smartphone then you’re making them a social outcast - I’m sure most of us can remember that one kid at school in the 80s/90s who didn’t have a tv and all the other kids knew and talked about it like it was so weird and alien. It’s the same thing.

We gave our kids (now mid-late teens) smart phones through gritted teeth when they started secondary school. They didn’t get snap/insta until age 15 and they’re still not allowed TikTok. We have tight age restrictions and screen time controls and they don’t have phones in bedrooms at night. So we have done/are doing as much as possible to prevent the dangers, whilst still allowing them to fit in with everyone else for the most part.

Am I favour of a ban on smart phones for under 16s? Absolutely! I’m sad it will be too late for my own children but it’s really not as simple as “why did you give them one then”.
I’m very hopeful that the ban will become a reality as I really worry for the current generation of children whose parents have stuck them in front of a screen from pretty much babyhood - the developmental delays, social skills, mental health issues etc etc are very worrying.

Just out of interest, how do the schools that.don't allow.smartphones at all.(and I'm not saying that is a bad thing), manage medical.exemptions?

My 3 are all beyond school age now so I'd really like to know how DCs who use phones as medical.devices are accommodated.

'allow' smartphones

They were at secondary school, using public transport.