Maine banned phones in schools to help teens focus and connect. It's working

Posted by jethronethro 1 day ago

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Comment by Brog_io 1 day ago

They did this in Belgium as well, surveys noticed that the overall screentime is the same. They just use their phone more after school, and 62% still used phones secretly.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/2333030/despite-ban-at-school-...

Comment by JimZw 1 day ago

This is a great start, but there's so much more situation where phones should be banned, or at least we should take the initiative to not have your phone around (meetings, restaurants, a dinner table, and when you're with your kids, when doing focused work, etc).

Comment by lathiat 1 day ago

Perth, Australia too: https://www.education.wa.edu.au/mobile-phones - phones are banned from the start to the end of school. Primary students cannot have them on them, secondary students can but they must be off and out of sight (even at break times).

Comment by Quibblingeek 1 day ago

I don't know if this falls under the category of "with age comes wisdom", but I don't exactly see this change as a bad thing.

If I'm remembering correctly (and this was a long time ago), when I was in school, the schools I went to had a sort-of zero tolerance policy for cell phones. Seemed a bit asinine at the time and the punishment for having one even more so. I believe it was taken for three months the first time, the entire school year on the second (the ethics of which are absolutely up for debate, but this was in the middle of redneck America so make of that what you will).

Of course as a kid I disagreed with it, but cell phones didn't offer a ubiquitous portal into all of the social ills of social media that they do today, nor do they provide an avenue to completely subvert human interaction at a stage where developing social calibration is taught as an unwritten and untaught subject.

I guess the backwards rednecks got this one right, all be it for the wrong reasons.

Comment by ElijahLynn 1 day ago

#HappyNews - what an uplifting piece of news today!

Comment by throwaway81523 1 day ago

Don't they mean focus and disconnect?

Comment by jpitz 1 day ago

likely "focus, and connect ( with other people )"

Comment by barbazoo 1 day ago

> The new law, championed by Gov. Janet Mills, was meant to limit distractions and encourage real-life connections

Comment by bjourne 1 day ago

Can the adults stop shitting on the young generation? There is no way in hell anyone in the workforce would agree to relinquishing their phone at the start of their shift so why should children? People lazy scroll YouTube and Facebook all the time at work yet kids can't. Hypocrites.

Comment by Kim_Bruning 1 day ago

I actually sort of agree with this, though it could have been worded more politely (but would it have been as impactful?) . Adults are also not always well served by the current generation of phones either.

I wouldn't ban them entirely, if only because cell phone calls to emergency services have saved many a life.

But the current app ecosystem really isn't there to serve the phone owner, tbqh.

Comment by bjourne 20 hours ago

You can live without phone apps because that fits your morals. But it doesn't stop there. Why not sugary products too? Imagine cashiers refusing obese people soda. And why not porn and video games too?

Comment by Kim_Bruning 20 hours ago

If we're going for the supermarket comparison, there's actually some restrictions on additives you are allowed to add to food. Things like cocaine or lead paint in your food are not (or no longer) permitted in the modern west.

On phones, disallowing certain forms of predatory behaviour like malvertising and addictive engagement algorithms might be an early quick win. The utility of your phone might actually improve!

Comment by lurking_swe 1 day ago

educate yourself a bit before calling others dumb. There is a LOT of evidence that (most) screen time, especially addictive tech like a smartphone, is bad for children. Especially their mental health.

I'm sure it's bad for adults as well, but school aged kids are in their formative years where learning how to talk to someone in real life is a skill that needs to be developed. Their brains are also not yet fully developed, so their time should be spent learning. Not fucking around in class on tiktok.

I was a student at one point myself and also wasn't able to use my phone in school. Boo-hoo? It's a bit like being a kid and complaining to the adults in the room that they don't let you smoke and drink.

Comment by Gigachad 1 day ago

Adults would also do better with less phone time tbh

Comment by distances 1 day ago

I would support a phone ban during work hours.

Comment by Kim_Bruning 1 day ago

I'd call them retrogressive anti-tech trogolodytes, but then I look at the device on my table and realize I had to look far and wide for a phone I could actually live with.

The mobile phones most people get sold in stores are not actually very nice at all. Advertising, shovelware, malware, and app stores that are not actually very well curated at all.

Pick up the device your random granny gets sold and see how hard you need to resist the urge to fling it out the window. "You actually like it that way?" "Not really. I brought it to the store a month ago, but it's filling up with crap again anyway"

So, it's not the screens actually. It's more like something needs to be fixed about the smart phone ecosystem before the things are really suitable to be used by kids (again).