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Education Businesses United States

Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration (fortune.com) 147

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Students at a California high school are getting less screen time since the school implemented a ban on cellphone use during the school day. From a report: After one teacher at San Lorenzo High School brought pouches, created by the tech start-up Yondr, into her classroom to lock away students' phones, the entire school began using them from the beginning of the school day at 8 a.m. until the end of the day at 3:10 p.m. According to a 2018 study from the Pew Research Center, more than half of teens said they felt loneliness, anxiety, or upset in the absence of a cellphone. The study also found that girls were more likely to feel these sentiments than boys.

"If something feels weird about modern life to young kids who are dealing with a lot of angst and anxiety in general, maybe it has something to do with relating to the world primarily through a screen eight hours a day," Yondr's founder Graham Dugoni told CNBC. Students said they initially felt awkward and annoyed having their phones taken away during the school day, but added that they started to see more teens interacting with each other. One student added that not having a phone in class helped with concentration.
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Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration More

Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration

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  • Nice advertisment (Score:3)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:28PM (#58046586) Homepage Journal
    Nice advertisement for "tech startup" Yondr. I thought tech startups stopped the "drop the last vowel thing" a while ago.

  • Why a pouch? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:31PM (#58046618)
    Just require students to keep them in their lockers (existing tech) for the duration of school. Privacy concerns can be addressed by locked/encrypted phones. Theft may be a problem, but that's an argument for not buying Buffy and Brittany a $1000 e-leash. But ... what about an emergency? Students survived for decades without phones in class...

    • Re:Why a pouch? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:34PM (#58046634) Homepage Journal
      That's what schools do. Or they just tell the students to turn it off and put it in their existing backpack. But Yondr paid some school to use their bags and they are going to get a mention on Fortune. It is the "new journalism".

    • Students survived for decades without phones in class...

      Yes, they survived, but all those students always "felt loneliness, anxiety, or upset", because the cellphone hadn't been invented yet.

      Your kids don't need child psychiatrists . . . all they need is a cellphone.

      So I guess that teen drug use must be way down, now that they have cellphones to get high on.

    • Civic emergencies (tornado, fire, etc.) aren't a problem. The school will be notified anyway, and will take steps to keep the students safe.

      For family emergencies, back in the days before cell phones the family would just call the school's office. The office would then send someone to the classroom to collect the student (cue movie scene of student being told his parents were just killed in a car crash) and bring them to the front office to wait for another family member to come pick them up.

      There's

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by bob4u2c ( 73467 )
        I wonder how that goes with privacy laws.

        Working at a University in California we were told that we couldn't create any system that would show the location or allow someone to know the location of a student because that student could be under age and it was illegal to track them or allow them to be tracked. For example, we couldn't show a list of students in a class because someone would know Sally was in Econ 101-1 which is held in Building A between the hours of 1:00 and 2:00 every Monday/Wednesday/Fri
    • Modern schools often do not have lockers (citation [washingtonpost.com]).
      • They do, just HS kids don't use them as much. However, they still generally exist and can be used to store phones.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Paxtez ( 948813 )

          Most (all?) of the schools in my state don't have general tv-style lockers. All our campuses are open, where classes are in many different buildings and you have to walk outside to get from class to class. An open building with lockers outside would just invite break-ins at night.

          Generally the only lockers were inside of the gym, but they weren't assigned to you, you used them for the day and I don't think you even locked them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by b0bby ( 201198 )

      Lockers in schools are not secure at all - usually they have the same combinations year after year, and that knowledge is passed around.

  • Good. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:32PM (#58046622) Journal
    I hope more schools do this. Wean them off smartphones and their addiction to them.
    • It would be really interesting to see data on the number of texts and missed calls that happened while the phone was locked away. I suspect the totals would shock most parents.

      • I would imagine the amount of missed texts and calls would be near zero if the entire school was locking everyone's phones up. Everyone the student knew would likely already be at school...

    • No one is going to take thier phones away in college. In college all they will do is take their tuition and fees then kick them out when they fail the year the kids will still have to pay student loans until they die.

      At thier first real job they will not have thier phones taken away. They will be fired and escorted out. When they get another job they will have a bad reference.

      At school, especially high school, kids have to be taught to use thier devices to succeed. They have to run searches, calculato

    • I hope more schools do this. Wean them off smartphones and their addiction to them.

      Oooooooo.

      That is the parent's job. I hope we start relying less on schools to be the parents. They do a shitty job of it, but that is not surprising as the schools were not designed to be a surrogate family.

  • ONE STUDENT said it helped with concentration (Score:3)

    by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:41PM (#58046706)

    Bad headline: "Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration"

    (1) Only one student reported that it helped with concentration. There was no indication that it actually does help with concentration.

    (2) There was no indication that "helping with concentration" was the motive for the school doing it

    (3) The article only mentioned one school; I don't know where the headline got the plural "schools".

    (That said, I personally believe that phones are bad for concentration, and indeed my children's school also bans phones. I just want to see actual defensible data. Not a dumb article designed as click-bait to reinforce some people's prejudices and raise the ire of those who disagree with it.)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Phones can be disruptive in class. Also, it is disrespectful to the teacher to be paying attention to a device rather than the teacher. Students should be required to leave their phone turned off and in their locker during the school day. I also think that most kids would benefit from spending at least two weeks a year at a summer camp where no phones or other electronic devices are allowed. I also think that kids under 13 should NOT have a phone. If helicopter parents think that their kids must have a

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by shess ( 31691 )

        Phones can be disruptive in class. Also, it is disrespectful to the teacher to be paying attention to a device rather than the teacher. Students should be required to leave their phone turned off and in their locker during the school day. I also think that most kids would benefit from spending at least two weeks a year at a summer camp where no phones or other electronic devices are allowed. I also think that kids under 13 should NOT have a phone. If helicopter parents think that their kids must have a phone before that age, it should be a flip phone without Internet or texting capabilities.

        Far too many people of all ages spend far far too much time with their attention glued to a "smart" phone instead of paying attention to the people and events around them!

        Did this response set out to prove that cellphones aren't the only cause of poor reading comprehension?

    • You don't need to spend a few million on a study to provide data proving that texting, playing games, watching silly videos, and posting to social media all at the same time makes it hard to concentrate in a class room. If your attention is divided then your concentration is not optimal, you are distracted. Would getting rid of the cell phone keep them from being distracted not necessarily but it's a start.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

        You don't need to spend a few million on a study to provide data proving that texting, playing games, watching silly videos, and posting to social media all at the same time makes it hard to concentrate in a class room.

        You also don't need to spend a few million to prove that a phone that's not used at all during class has no detrimental effect on concentration.

        Now that we have the straw men out the way, the questions are (1) what outcomes do we wish to improve? (2) is a blanket ban, a blanket acceptance or some other more nuanced rule on cellphones the most effective way to achieve it?

    • There is little need for more defensible data. It is well established that humans cannot multitask very effectively, and generally all tasks suffer in performance while multitasking. Using a smart phone while learning in class is a rather clear subset of the general phenomenon.

      That said, it could be useful to know how strongly academic performance is affected. All tasks are not affected equally, so there are still some unknown elements.

      But such details are not necessary to support a general claim along the

  • Yay! (Score:3)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:59PM (#58046838)

    But here come the arguments/complaints about one's "right" to have their digital toy with them at all times in 3... 2...

    • But here come the arguments/complaints about one's "right" to have their digital toy with them at all times in 3... 2...

      They have the "toy" with them, but by calling it a toy you trivialize the problem.

      For example, you're in a classroom and the person sitting next to you goes into anaphylactic shock because of some food allergy. You pull your phone out to call 911 -- oops, no. Or diabetic shock. Sorry. You have to hope the teacher has his phone handy.

      Or you are a diabetic who has one of these newfangled glucose monitors that talk to an app on your phone and alert you to spikes (positive or negative) that you need to deal

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        1. food allergy, etc. The teacher is the one responsible for classroom safety and calling for help. Five or six calls to emergency services isn't going to improve the outcome. Teacher should also be aware of who in his or her class has these issues. It's a big section on enrolment forms - allergies and other medical conditions that might require intervention or assistance. Teachers have to undergo first aid training to deal with those situations, e.g. epipens, etc

        2. glucose monitor. That would be a legitima

        • 1. food allergy, etc. The teacher is the one responsible for classroom safety and calling for help.

          It's always "someone else" who is responsible for your and your classmate's safety, isn't it? ANYONE who sees the problem has the responsibility to do something about it. Teacher stepped out of the room, I guess you just have to wait for teacher to come back before you can call for medical help, huh? You're a sheep.

          2. glucose monitor. That would be a legitimate medical exception, and arrangements are already in place for those circumstances.

          Really? Most schools don't do the phone baggies yet, but they've already got "arrangements in place" to deal with this issue. Knee-jerk idiots who think this is a good idea because other schools

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dwywit ( 1109409 )

            Remember, when you resort to personal attacks and name-calling, you weaken your own argument, not the other person's.

            See, I thought your original post had some flaws, but I didn't resort to calling you names, I addressed your arguments. Perhaps you're not so secure in your own position, when you have to lash out at those who disagree.

            • Remember, when you resort to personal attacks and name-calling, you weaken your own argument, not the other person's.

              Calling an idea stupid is not a personal attack. Calling a passive behaviour behaving like a sheep is not a personal attack.

              See, I thought your original post had some flaws,

              And then I corrected you on that. The best you can do to the corrections is complain that an attack on your opinion is a personal attack.

              Perhaps you're not so secure in your own position, when you have to lash out at those who disagree.

              Perhaps you are not secure in your own, when you cannot respond to correction with anything but the idea it was a personal attack.

              When you can come up with something that shows that banning cell phone access isn't a stupid, dangerous option, please

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dcw3 ( 649211 )

            You clearly can't imagine what it was like before cell phones. There's no reason someone would have to sit and wait for the teacher to return. In an emergency, someone would contact the office...do you really think the kids would just sit there? And your active shooter straw man is just ridiculous. Yes, school shootings are a problem, but they are a problem that 99.999% of the population will never have to deal with, while 100% of the school population deals with idiots in the classroom addicted to, che

            • You clearly can't imagine what it was like before cell phones.

              Oh, please. Come up with a better argument.

              There's no reason someone would have to sit and wait for the teacher to return. In an emergency, someone would contact the office...

              In an emergency, time is critical. In the past, before everyone had a cellphone in their pocket, taking the time to send someone to find a wired landline was necessary. Today it IS NOT. The time saved can save lives. And the idea that someone is going to run from a classroom to the school office so they can call the cops about an active shooter is just ridiculous.

              do you really think the kids would just sit there?

              Why not? They've been turned into passive observers who, according to the OP, are not responsible for

  • A "tech start-up Yondr" makes bags to hold phones? Ummm... that's hardly a tech company. At best, it's a packaging company.

  • Symptoms of Addiction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zorro ( 15797 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @03:44PM (#58047466)

    If someone feels this in abcence of Alcohol they are called an Alcoholic.

    If someone feels this in abcence of a drug they are called a Drug Addict.

    It is the SAMETHING!

    • If a kid feels loneliness and anxiety when you cut off a major means of communication (including with their emergency contact), the problem might not be the kid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      If someone feels this in absence of money they are called indigent.

      If someone feels this in absence of sex they are called horny

      Is it the SAMETHING?

  • Ban in France (Score:3)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @07:08PM (#58048414)
    France banned phones in school up to 9th grade. Children complained of course, but they survived after all.

  • This is an example of what's wrong with the paternalistic attitude that's prevalent toward students. Acting as if high school students have absolutely no self-control by seizing their phones because they're deemed to be too distracting is certainly not a good way to form them into responsible adults who can take care of themselves.

    It's worth emphasizing that the only reason this is allowed to stand is because high school students don't have another option. If an employer imposed the surrender of phones by e

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      This is an example of what's wrong with the paternalistic attitude that's prevalent toward students.

      School is literally there to be paternalistic - that's the idea. Otherwise kids would be in work with their actual parents.

      Acting as if high school students have absolutely no self-control by seizing their phones because they're deemed to be too distracting is certainly not a good way to form them into responsible adults who can take care of themselves.

      Well, firstly the problem is that high school students don't have much in the way of self-control. Maybe you never were one but I was and I remember how we were outside of class.

      Secondly, teaching children that certain behaviours are unacceptable in particular contexts is forming them into responsible adults.

      As far as I can see, your idea is that children in a class should be allowed to

  • My two sons went to a school where cell phones were banned during the school day. Students were required to keep them in their lockers. If any phone was discovered, it was immediately confiscated, and could only be returned to the student by having a parent come to the office to claim the phone.

    Did it work? Not in the least.

    One of our sons told us that "everybody" had their phones with them every day. They learned to keep them on silent, and away from the eyes of staff. Our son admitted that he was among th

  • https://phys.org/news/2018-04-cellphones-gaining-schools.html [phys.org]

    The nation's largest school system, New York City, is among those that have abandoned strict bans, which had some students paying $1 a day to store phones in specialty trucks parked nearby before heading into school. Mayor Bill de Blasio fulfilled a campaign pledge when he lifted the ban in 2015, saying it would help parents stay in touch with their children.

    Phones have offered a lifeline between students and the outside world during recent schoo

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