Speaker 1: I'm Manny, I'm Noah, and this is no such thing.
Speaker 1: The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours
Speaker 1: by actually doing the research. On today's episode, why can't
Speaker 1: kids just use the school phone like I used to?
Speaker 2: There's no no such thing, no such thing.
Speaker 1: Such, thank.
Speaker 3: Thank thank.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, my fiance Julie and I got
Speaker 1: into a disagreement about whether or not our future kids
Speaker 1: should have cell phones. My view at the time was, well,
Speaker 1: I made it through high school and most of college
Speaker 1: without a smartphone. You can do what I did and
Speaker 1: just use the office phone if you need to reach
Speaker 1: me or in your mouth to talk to people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ask one of your friends who has a phone, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they have nice parents. Her view was that times
Speaker 1: have changed. I was in high school, you know, let's
Speaker 1: say fifteen years ago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, like that, So I see you sad to
Speaker 5: hear that, and our phoneless child would be an outlier,
Speaker 5: a loser, maybe a pariah, and they'd be left out
Speaker 5: of things if they don't have a phone.
Speaker 1: More and more states and school districts have been introducing
Speaker 1: cell phone restriction policies. California Governor Gavin Newsom putting out
Speaker 1: the call to all school districts to restrict cell phones
Speaker 1: in the classroom.
Speaker 6: Governor Kevin Stitt once phones out of Oklahoma classrooms. Governor
Speaker 6: Glenn Youngkin issued a executive order requiring the state's Department
Speaker 6: of Education come up with policies to restrict or ban
Speaker 6: cell phones for all grade levels.
Speaker 1: At least sixteen states have introduced legislation to restrict or
Speaker 1: banned phones in schools. It's kind of hard to keep
Speaker 1: up with as legislation is kind of in different stages.
Speaker 1: Here in New York, our Governor Kathy Hochel just unveiled
Speaker 1: a new plan to go into effect this fall.
Speaker 7: That a bell to bell ban warning until the day
Speaker 7: is over, is not going to hurt your kids. It's
Speaker 7: going to help them emerge with stronger mental health and resiliency.
Speaker 1: And that's broadly speaking. Teachers are in support of a bank.
Speaker 1: According to a p report, seventy two percent of high
Speaker 1: school teachers say phone distraction is a major issue, and
Speaker 1: a survey by the National Parents Union said that seventy
Speaker 1: percent of parents agree that cell phone you should be
Speaker 1: banned during class, but more than half think that students
Speaker 1: should be allowed to use them at other times outside
Speaker 1: of the classroom, so launch reesas between classes, et cetera.
Speaker 1: On both sides, a lot of this boils down to
Speaker 1: safety concerns, so parents want to be able to reach
Speaker 1: their kid during an emergency, whether that's a school shooting
Speaker 1: or a mental health crisis. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: many pro banned parents cite the harms of social media
Speaker 1: and cyber bullying and just playing distraction. So, having said
Speaker 1: all that, and a disclaimer that none of us have kids,
Speaker 1: but we have all gone to school and we all
Speaker 1: also own cell phones, what do you guys think?
Speaker 8: Many?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't mean to come off of the top
Speaker 2: rope here, but I think please, I just think like,
Speaker 2: if anyone's arguing that, like they need the phones in school,
Speaker 2: the easiest thing to point to is that we've done
Speaker 2: it before without the phones. As you said, times have
Speaker 2: changed and there might be new reasons that you know,
Speaker 2: new kind of factors at play today then when I
Speaker 2: was in school, that that might make you need a phone,
Speaker 2: But I just don't see it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Devin, Yeah, I think it's ridiculous to argue that
Speaker 6: kids and need their phones in school. A phone from
Speaker 6: bell to bell, So you don't need it during this Why.
Speaker 8: Do you need at lunch?
Speaker 1: I think I lean towards that you're both banned. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm barely even allowing my kid to have a phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I'm just interested to know what the
Speaker 2: real arguments are because I I've seen this debate a
Speaker 2: lot online, but I haven't really been that plugged into it,
Speaker 2: so in my head, I don't know. I'm not necessarily
Speaker 2: pro band, but I'm definitely anti this idea that kids
Speaker 2: absolutely need phones in school. Now, I also don't mind
Speaker 2: like all right, classes over, whip your phone out, tech
Speaker 2: your friends or whatever until the next class or at
Speaker 2: recess or at lunch or whatever. Like I had a
Speaker 2: I did have a phone my senior year of high school,
Speaker 2: and it obviously wasn't a smartphone. It could only text
Speaker 2: people or T nine. Yeah, I had T nine texting,
Speaker 2: and I think I had like a really shitty deal
Speaker 2: or no deal game on there. But it just wasn't
Speaker 2: a piece of technology that I ever thought about killing
Speaker 2: time with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, the smartphone thing is so different than even
Speaker 1: if you were like a texting addict. It's like that
Speaker 1: just pales in comparison to a smartphone where you have
Speaker 1: TikTok or Instagram or whatever. Ye like, even if your
Speaker 1: text all the time, you can only do so much,
Speaker 1: you know, because.
Speaker 8: It requires someone else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just like taking the schools and kids
Speaker 1: out of it. It's like we're all addicted to our phones. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because of these things too. It's like, I think that's
Speaker 1: what makes it difficult too, is I think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of adults who can't reckon with the fact
Speaker 1: that maybe they also have an issue with the phones,
Speaker 1: and maybe that colors how they treat the children. Like
Speaker 1: you said, we're largely unaffected by the school specific issue,
Speaker 1: but I can see there being a great argument for
Speaker 1: kids needing a place to not be on their phones,
Speaker 1: Like at some point during the day.
Speaker 6: It's not like we're sending your kid off in the
Speaker 6: woods and saying they can't have a phone and there's
Speaker 6: no way to contact them.
Speaker 8: They're at a school, you.
Speaker 6: Know, the tough thing Like you're saying, it is like,
Speaker 6: all right, the US schools are in asafe as we
Speaker 6: want them to be. But I just think that you
Speaker 6: got to think of the trade offs, and I think
Speaker 6: having the phones and what that does to the kids
Speaker 6: is worth the off chance of something bad happening and
Speaker 6: you not being able to contact them immediately.
Speaker 8: But I also don't have kids.
Speaker 1: I also think there's this kind of strain where it's
Speaker 1: like people kind of want to treat kids the same
Speaker 1: as adults. Yes, which I get out of, you know, respect,
Speaker 1: these are humans, Yeah, they have rights. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's like kids not be trusted to make the best
Speaker 1: decisions for them since course, like it's why we don't
Speaker 1: let twelve year olds drive cars. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: or like yeah there, I mean time their brains aren't developed.
Speaker 1: It's like they're learning how to be a human still. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like, yeah, like they might not like that
Speaker 1: we're taking the phone away, but I mean, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: they'll probably be better off if they can, at least
Speaker 1: for five hours of their life not have the phone.
Speaker 1: You think about like.
Speaker 2: The you know, we've we've heard so much in the
Speaker 2: past few years, even in Congress, about like the harms
Speaker 2: of social media. So you think about like if you
Speaker 2: if you can imagine hearing a good argument for why
Speaker 2: kids should have phones at all, then you're like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe it's it's a lot easier to see that these
Speaker 2: five or six hours at school, they shouldn't have them.
Speaker 1: So next, I want to talk to people on all
Speaker 1: sides of the issue. Let's hear them out, and I
Speaker 1: want to see how these policies actually work in practice.
Speaker 1: All of that after the break, All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: I'm Manny, I'm Noah.
Speaker 8: This is Devin.
Speaker 1: So I want to start with the case for banning phones,
Speaker 1: since that's where the momentum is heading nationally. I spoke
Speaker 1: with the co founder of an organization pushing for phone
Speaker 1: free schools. It's aptly named the Phone Free Schools Movement.
Speaker 3: I'm Sabina Pollack, and I'm co founder of the Phone
Speaker 3: Free School's Movement.
Speaker 1: Sabina has a very personal backstory that got her involved
Speaker 1: in this issue.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, unfortunately, it all started with a phone call out
Speaker 3: of the blue from my daughter's school counselor saying that
Speaker 3: she was suicidal, which completely floored me.
Speaker 9: I had no idea she was struggling.
Speaker 3: Turns out, the main aggravator to that mental health challenges
Speaker 3: that she was facing with social media and her social
Speaker 3: media use. Long story short, she ended up spending six
Speaker 3: weeks in a partial hospitalization program. I did a deep
Speaker 3: dive into the applications she was using. Was pretty horrified
Speaker 3: at what I was finding. Social media had pretty much
Speaker 3: turned her from a thriving young person with aspirations goals
Speaker 3: for the future, to someone that was unrecognizable, had no
Speaker 3: aspirations anymore, had given up on herself. So when we
Speaker 3: finally sent her back to school, our school had a
Speaker 3: cell phone policy on paper, had trust that we were
Speaker 3: sending her back to a school where they kind of
Speaker 3: had her back taking the right steps. We found out
Speaker 3: pretty much at the end of that semester that her
Speaker 3: grades were falling, and we spoke to all her teachers
Speaker 3: and said, is she using her cell phone? And unanimously
Speaker 3: they all said, yep, she sits on her cell phone
Speaker 3: all day during class. So here, not only did we
Speaker 3: think that we were sending our daughter back to this safe,
Speaker 3: healthy environment, but it was the complete opposite. No one
Speaker 3: was going to tell us that these problems were going on.
Speaker 1: Sabina told me she met with the school administration, who
Speaker 1: said that they were aware of the issues with phones
Speaker 1: and students, but were hesitant to really do anything about
Speaker 1: it out of fear of reprisal from the community and
Speaker 1: In Sabina's view, this issue couldn't be solved individually because
Speaker 1: she tried to take her daughter's phone away but only
Speaker 1: alienated her daughter further from her peers and made the
Speaker 1: problem even worse. So I asked what she recommends.
Speaker 3: We did the boots on the ground research to try
Speaker 3: to figure out, like what was making certain policies effective
Speaker 3: and what was making other policies fail. And what we
Speaker 3: found out was that it really needs to be an
Speaker 3: all day bell to belle policy, so that means it's
Speaker 3: not in their backpack, it's not in a personal locker.
Speaker 3: It has to be you know, stored away from the
Speaker 3: person or in a in something like a lockable pouch.
Speaker 3: And especially with the classroom time only bands, were really
Speaker 3: putting the burden completely on the teachers to have to
Speaker 3: enforce that type of a ban. Some teachers are going
Speaker 3: to enforce it at a higher level than others, and
Speaker 3: then you have this inconsistency which leads to pushback from
Speaker 3: students and even the teachers that are heavily trying to
Speaker 3: enforce the policies. After a couple of weeks, they end
Speaker 3: up kind of giving up on the policy, and by.
Speaker 9: The end of the school year. No one's really enforcing
Speaker 9: it anymore.
Speaker 2: Like, not even ten minutes ago, I was saying how
Speaker 2: I could see, like your phone gets banned in specific classes.
Speaker 2: But now now hearing her, I can easily see why
Speaker 2: all day makes a little bit more sense. Like teachers
Speaker 2: are already so burdened, and I like all these factors.
Speaker 2: They're probably so stressed out, they're underpaid. It does seem
Speaker 2: unfair to put like one more thing on them.
Speaker 8: Now, just like kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard enough obviously to be a teacher. So
Speaker 1: another common thing you'll hear against bens is what if
Speaker 1: my kid needs to reach me. Here's what Sabina had
Speaker 1: to say to that.
Speaker 3: So we're hearing from mental health professionals that you really
Speaker 3: need to equip these kids, even the ones that have anxiety,
Speaker 3: with other type of coping mechanisms. Even in the real world,
Speaker 3: they're going to have to have several different types of
Speaker 3: coping methods to be able to navigate a job and
Speaker 3: so forth. Kids having twenty four access to their parents
Speaker 3: can sometimes fuel anxiety. Schools were typically the safe spaces,
Speaker 3: you know, It's the first place that they were independent
Speaker 3: from their parents and kind of could experiment through trial
Speaker 3: and are with navigating that independence.
Speaker 1: When you look at the surveys, parents say they want
Speaker 1: the kids to have cell phones in schools in case
Speaker 1: there's an emergency. So obviously the most extreme and kind
Speaker 1: of top of mind one often is school shootings. Do
Speaker 1: you have a response to that line of argument.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, as a parent, I have to say,
Speaker 3: I get it right, Like, that's a hugely emotional thing
Speaker 3: that's on the top of all of our minds, but
Speaker 3: we have to kind of make sure that we're separating
Speaker 3: the emotions from the facts. So we know that phones
Speaker 3: make kids much less safe in emergency situation, and that
Speaker 3: comes from, you know, the fact that the phone could
Speaker 3: alert an intruder of the hiding location of students, tying
Speaker 3: up communication lines to first responders. And I have to
Speaker 3: remind myself that the number one important thing is that
Speaker 3: they're safe and that these teachers are highly trained in
Speaker 3: these situations and to kind of rely on them and
Speaker 3: their expertise to handle the situation. There's simple solutions that
Speaker 3: schools can take, you know, that are cost effective, whether
Speaker 3: it's installing panic buttons in each classrooms that allowed the
Speaker 3: direct line to emergency response I don't think that arming
Speaker 3: kids with cell phones and replacing one harm with another
Speaker 3: is the solution.
Speaker 9: There's got to be something else.
Speaker 1: Social Media obviously is a huge, probably the biggest kind
Speaker 1: of catalyst in this whole debate. So obviously school is
Speaker 1: only part of the day, you know, from whatever seven
Speaker 1: thirty to two thirty. So I asked if focusing on
Speaker 1: social media regulation might be a better thing to focus
Speaker 1: on than getting phones out of schools.
Speaker 3: Fixing the problems with social media definitely, you know, it
Speaker 3: has to happen. We're obviously huge supporters of KOSA and
Speaker 3: bills like that. Unfortunately, those things aren't going to happen
Speaker 3: fast enough where our kids need it to happen. We
Speaker 3: need to find other solutions in the meantime. Number One,
Speaker 3: we are by no means suggesting that phone free schools
Speaker 3: are the only solution, but we do really feel like
Speaker 3: it's an important for at step and changing a community
Speaker 3: norm around phone use. We do have to realize that
Speaker 3: these kids are addicted, and so giving them the seven
Speaker 3: plus hours a day to collectively experience life as a group,
Speaker 3: as a community without social media is really some of
Speaker 3: the best digital literacy that we can provide.
Speaker 1: So Sabina mentioned KOSA. That's the Kids Online Safety Act.
Speaker 1: It's a bipartisan bill that was passed by the Senate
Speaker 1: in July twenty twenty four, but Congress hasn't voted on
Speaker 1: it yet.
Speaker 10: Young people will take back control over their on law lives.
Speaker 10: Parents will have tools to safeguard those young people. They
Speaker 10: will be able to disconnect from the addictive features and
Speaker 10: opt out of those black box algorithms that drive at
Speaker 10: them relentlessly, be eating disorders, bullying, fentanyl, sex exploitation, self harm,
Speaker 10: and all too often suicide and bullying.
Speaker 1: That Senator Richard Blumenthal one of the co sponsors of
Speaker 1: the bill. I don't want to get too far into
Speaker 1: the weeds here, but it's garnered a bit of controversy.
Speaker 1: Groups like the ACLU argue that it's a First Amendment violation,
Speaker 1: and they say it could be used to sensor info
Speaker 1: on things like sexual health and gender identity or getting
Speaker 1: help with eating disorders. Basically, what Constitute says harmful needs
Speaker 1: to be more specific. We're not going to debate KOSA,
Speaker 1: but generally so like, that's not the point here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you guys agree that cutting social media use during
Speaker 1: school might help overall with maybe addiction outside of see.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you're not using your phone for seven hours
Speaker 6: straught today, it's going to make it easier for you
Speaker 6: to not be on your phone when you're not at school.
Speaker 1: And lastly, I asked if being had any insight on
Speaker 1: how students actually are reacting to these bands, like how
Speaker 1: do they feel.
Speaker 3: I don't know that we've heard from any schools that
Speaker 3: have really had an issue when it comes to students
Speaker 3: kind of adjusting to these policies and in many instances
Speaker 3: actually being very thankful that these policies were put in place.
Speaker 9: I think school's biggest fear is they.
Speaker 3: Think we're going to have pushback from students, and we're
Speaker 3: seeing very little of that. But for the most part,
Speaker 3: we're hearing positive things. I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 3: just kind of going to a school worrying that you
Speaker 3: might drop your lunch tray and you might be videotaped
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, it's you know, all over
Speaker 3: the internet. But it's just a lot of pressure and
Speaker 3: when you remove that, they're all kind of breathing a
Speaker 3: sigh of relief. I think one of my pet peeves
Speaker 3: is when people say, well, my child has a right
Speaker 3: to have a phone, and going through this experience, you know,
Speaker 3: to me, I feel like my child and every child
Speaker 3: has a right to a distraction free education, a right
Speaker 3: to choose to go to school without a phone or
Speaker 3: put their phone away and not feel isolated from everyone
Speaker 3: around them.
Speaker 9: Kids have a right to that. They have a right
Speaker 9: to a healthy school day.
Speaker 6: I had a visceral reaction to my kids have a
Speaker 6: right to have a phone. I'm sorry, it's so I
Speaker 6: get why you want your kids to have a phone.
Speaker 8: My kid has a right to have a phone.
Speaker 2: Obviously, she wants to she wants to implement these policies.
Speaker 1: So I wonder like she's.
Speaker 2: Broke if all of the kids were so positive about it.
Speaker 1: I think one issue is obviously kids it's harder to
Speaker 1: survey the same way you can adults. Yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: just wayless data on what students think about these things.
Speaker 7: M hm.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this stuff is both fore and against.
Speaker 1: It's pretty anecdotal, you know. So you'll see story about
Speaker 1: school that put this in and there'll be one quote
Speaker 1: from some kid who said, yeah it's cool, you know,
Speaker 1: or I don't want this, you know, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: all right, well that's what Matt from this town.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, Well, if I was, you know, not neutral,
Speaker 2: I was leaning towards restrictions at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 2: Listening to her made me go a little bit further
Speaker 2: towards that direction. So I'm interested to hear the people
Speaker 2: on the other side of the argument. After the break,
Speaker 2: we'll hear from a parent on the other side. But first,
Speaker 2: some friends of the show shared their perspectives.
Speaker 8: Do you think school should ban phones?
Speaker 11: I think they should mainly because it used to be
Speaker 11: like people participate in you got your side conversations.
Speaker 8: Now when you.
Speaker 11: Walk through the hallway just scrolling on TikTok Instagram reels,
Speaker 11: it's like the hype is going about school, Like the
Speaker 11: only fun part of school is like getting died down.
Speaker 11: It's like nobody's even like talking in class, so you
Speaker 11: don't even get the social activities anymore.
Speaker 8: So it's just a school, school, school, work, work work.
Speaker 11: It's not like I'm not that person I can discross
Speaker 11: for I need things to do, you know.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and especially a.
Speaker 11: School when you have all these people around you, all
Speaker 11: these friends or people that could be your friends, and
Speaker 11: then you're just on your phone. It just defeasts the
Speaker 11: purpose of a school.
Speaker 4: You know, as someone who has worked in a middle
Speaker 4: school in New York City for the past seven years,
Speaker 4: I have seen the benefit of rules against students having
Speaker 4: their cell phones. We collect our student cell phones first
Speaker 4: thing every morning. We don't entirely know the long term
Speaker 4: effects that this generation will have and their access to
Speaker 4: social media or the remote years of school due to COVID.
Speaker 4: I love being in a school in classrooms where you
Speaker 4: don't have to worry about kids being distracted by their phones,
Speaker 4: and see it as a unique opportunity. It's so beneficial
Speaker 4: to provide kids a sacred time and space away from
Speaker 4: the outside world social media and just focus on their
Speaker 4: education and building relationships with people in person.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 8: I'm Anny Noah Devin.
Speaker 1: So now that we've heard from the phone free school's movement,
Speaker 1: it's time to turn to the other side. Fifty six
Speaker 1: percent of parents say students should sometimes be allowed to
Speaker 1: use their cell phones during the school day, and this
Speaker 1: is according to a survey by the National Parents Union.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to hear that a union. That was
Speaker 1: my first question. Yeah, so that was My first question
Speaker 1: is what is the National Parents Union.
Speaker 12: My name is Carrie Rodriguez, and I am Matthew Miles
Speaker 12: and David's mom, and I am the president of the
Speaker 12: National Parents Union. The National Parents Union is the united
Speaker 12: independent voice of modern American families. So what we seek
Speaker 12: to do is to bring together pockets of parents power.
Speaker 12: We've got about eighteen hundred of them in all fifty states,
Speaker 12: DC and Puerto Rico, with about one point seven million
Speaker 12: members and reaching between eighteen to twenty million families every
Speaker 12: single month through our infrastructure, where we seek to bring
Speaker 12: together parents who want to make sure that the priorities
Speaker 12: of American families are actually at the center of our
Speaker 12: policy building, our legislation, and our politics. The majority of
Speaker 12: American families actually do not want to ban cell phones,
Speaker 12: which you know, may sound crazy when you think about it,
Speaker 12: but it's actually pretty logical because what we have found
Speaker 12: in our research is that parents view cell phones as
Speaker 12: communications devices and really value the ability that we have
Speaker 12: to have that direct line of communication with our kids
Speaker 12: because in modern American life, whether it's the fact that
Speaker 12: you know, half of families are divorced and we've got
Speaker 12: folks sharing child custos, and you know, we no longer
Speaker 12: have this nineteen fifties model where mom is waiting at
Speaker 12: home or mom is going to the school and pick
Speaker 12: like kids are by themselves, they're on public transportation. Having
Speaker 12: that line of communication where we can track our kids,
Speaker 12: know where they are, make sure that we are there
Speaker 12: for them is something that is a part of modern
Speaker 12: life and modern American culture.
Speaker 1: Like Sabina, Carrie brings up the mental health crisis among children,
Speaker 1: exacerbated by social media, but her argument is that because
Speaker 1: of this, kids rely on direct lines of communication for
Speaker 1: needed support.
Speaker 12: My youngest is a sixth grader. I've gotten calls from
Speaker 12: the bathroom from a kid who's on a five four plan.
Speaker 12: My youngest son saying to me like, Mom, can you
Speaker 12: come get me? My teacher's not here. They don't know,
Speaker 12: they don't know how to calm me down. I'm having
Speaker 12: a panic attack. What can I do? I hop on
Speaker 12: FaceTime with him to help him.
Speaker 8: To de escalate.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is there's already even just in this there's
Speaker 1: so much that she does agree with the other side,
Speaker 1: especially on social media and mental health and these things.
Speaker 1: It's more like, do we go after the phones or
Speaker 1: do we go after the apps? Yeah, because if you
Speaker 1: both again, it sounds like if they got rid of
Speaker 1: the apps and the phone was kind of like our
Speaker 1: phones in school and it was just the dumb phone
Speaker 1: where Okay, I can call my mom if I really
Speaker 1: need to. Yeah, that might solve most of the issues.
Speaker 2: For that's a good distinction that it's not really like
Speaker 2: banned phones. It's like ban the distractions on the phones.
Speaker 8: Maybe.
Speaker 6: I think where I disagree with her, and I think
Speaker 6: she had a lot of valid points right about, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: should this be more of a conversation. One point that
Speaker 6: really stuck with me is her saying, you know, I
Speaker 6: understand these I don't know what it's like to go
Speaker 6: to school or be at a young age and go
Speaker 6: through COVID. I know a lot of people had a
Speaker 6: tough time with that, even our age, so I can't
Speaker 6: imagine being a kid and losing that development time.
Speaker 8: I think.
Speaker 6: I just don't see a world in which it is
Speaker 6: is good that your child is reaching out to you
Speaker 6: throughout the day as a crutch.
Speaker 1: If you have a situation that severe, you know, then
Speaker 1: there should be something else, YESD like yes, okay, I
Speaker 1: need to go to the bathroom and call my mom.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like you should get a note, you should get
Speaker 6: a doctor's serious.
Speaker 1: And yes, like there should be other things in play.
Speaker 6: It shouldn't be the norm, it should be an exception.
Speaker 6: At a certain point, they're not going to be able
Speaker 6: to call you when they're in a tough situation, so
Speaker 6: they're going to have to learn that skill. And yeah,
Speaker 6: you would want to ease them into that, But I
Speaker 6: don't think the response should be, well, I should just
Speaker 6: always be available to my kid. It's like, yeah, when
Speaker 6: we were growing up, we couldn't talk to our parents
Speaker 6: during the day unless it was an emergency, right, Like,
Speaker 6: you have to just figure it out.
Speaker 1: So I asked Carrie what an ideal policy would look like.
Speaker 1: Her emphasis, again was on including parents and students in
Speaker 1: the policy making and underlining the reality that we we
Speaker 1: do live in the cell phone age, for better or worse.
Speaker 12: An ideal policy incorporates the concerns that teachers have around
Speaker 12: distraction disruption, but also takes into the account the fact
Speaker 12: that we are pushing our kids into a digital society
Speaker 12: where they're going to have to be competitive in a
Speaker 12: global economy where these devices are going to be a
Speaker 12: part of everyday life. And it's also our obligation to
Speaker 12: teach our children the behavioral management skills to have a
Speaker 12: healthy relationship with technology. Now we can ban things, you know,
Speaker 12: we try this with a lot of stuff, like maybe
Speaker 12: abstinence education. The best way not to have pregnant teenagers
Speaker 12: right is just to tell them don't have sex, right,
Speaker 12: don't do drugs like that's always our go to is
Speaker 12: to be like, well, just tell them not to do it.
Speaker 12: That doesn't work. Well, you know, it's never been an
Speaker 12: effective strategy. I also see the antiquated classrooms that our
Speaker 12: kids are spending hours a day, and with the idea
Speaker 12: if you know, they're never going to have access to
Speaker 12: this technology to help them with their everyday skills that
Speaker 12: they're going to utilize, it just seems like a missed opportunity.
Speaker 6: The abstinence thing doesn't make sense because we're saying, basically,
Speaker 6: during this period of time, don't do the thing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we're not saying don't be on your phone. Period.
Speaker 6: We're saying, during this period of time, we're not going
Speaker 6: to ask you not to be on your phone.
Speaker 2: And to be slightly fair to her, I think like
Speaker 2: the analogy about abstinence and drug use, Like wasn't the
Speaker 2: best analogy, but I do understand the point of like,
Speaker 2: instead of banning something, you know from the ground up,
Speaker 2: you can be you could, I don't know, focus more
Speaker 2: education about it and like help kids understand what the
Speaker 2: problems are and.
Speaker 6: Who, like who's responsible for that now in this scenario
Speaker 6: where the kids are having the phones, who's responsible for
Speaker 6: teaching the kids how to have that balance?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 6: The teachers are Now that's the current situation wherein and
Speaker 6: it's not working right. Yeah, So the parents are on
Speaker 6: doing a good job of teaching their kids when to
Speaker 6: not use their phones, and the teachers are struggling with it.
Speaker 6: Like we're not at this point because it's not a
Speaker 6: problem and someone just decided.
Speaker 8: Yea great, Oh actually it's just take the phones away.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there is a problem and that parents are not
Speaker 6: doing a good job of it and the teachers are
Speaker 6: struggling with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So kind of last on this, she again really
Speaker 1: stresses wanting her voice to be heard, and she understands
Speaker 1: the difficulty of enforcing some of these policies in practice.
Speaker 12: You can put whatever policy you want, I will tell
Speaker 12: you that, Like, even when I do a TikTok about
Speaker 12: this issue. The comments that I get from American families
Speaker 12: are like, great, have your little policy. Let me tell
Speaker 12: you about what's going to happen with my child, because
Speaker 12: if you think I trust you like that in a
Speaker 12: day and age where it is a standing possibility that
Speaker 12: they could be shot to death and murdered in a classroom,
Speaker 12: you're out of your mind. I will send my kid
Speaker 12: with a burner phone. I don't care about your little policy.
Speaker 12: We have made a decision in this country that we
Speaker 12: are not going to do anything about gun violence. So
Speaker 12: if all you got for me is thoughts and prayers,
Speaker 12: all I got for you is my kid's going to
Speaker 12: have a cell phone hundred percent.
Speaker 5: Like.
Speaker 12: The argument will be, well, those are those are so rare,
Speaker 12: which again I don't buy because you've had more than
Speaker 12: two hundred and fifty instances of gun violence and we're
Speaker 12: only in January. Friend. Oftentimes policies like this they come
Speaker 12: to me after the cake is baked. I want to
Speaker 12: be asked, are you hungry?
Speaker 2: Do you want cake?
Speaker 12: Do you want a hamburger? Like That's the part of
Speaker 12: the process that we need to be brought into so
Speaker 12: that we can actually bring up these points about like
Speaker 12: what we're concerned about, but unfortunately, you know, you bring
Speaker 12: us in afterwards. What ends up happening is again the
Speaker 12: concerns that I have, which are real and valid, around
Speaker 12: kids being hurt, being unsafe, Like if you're not considering
Speaker 12: like instances like that our special education community, frankly communities
Speaker 12: of color and families that unfortunately have these policies more
Speaker 12: directly implemented down upon them and unfairly subject their kids
Speaker 12: to school discipline because there's just a bigger crackdown in
Speaker 12: communities of color, Like these are very real things that
Speaker 12: need to be considered.
Speaker 6: A really good point I think about who's going to
Speaker 6: get in trouble for having these phones? You know, we
Speaker 6: already know black and brown kids are disproportionately punished for
Speaker 6: doing the same things as white kids. Is just just
Speaker 6: another excuse to be like, hey, Dayshan, why.
Speaker 8: Are you always on your phone?
Speaker 6: Meanwhile, Billy's doing the same exact thing, but Dashawn's getting
Speaker 6: suspended for it and Billy if not.
Speaker 2: Maybe this just makes me feel like restrictions but flat
Speaker 2: like blanket once they need to be stressed, because if
Speaker 2: they're not blanket, then you do run into all these
Speaker 2: issues area she's talking about, who's going to get in trouble,
Speaker 2: our parents, going to give people second phones, that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. Now, maybe I'm just sliding slightly more to
Speaker 2: or to the bell to bell versus class to class.
Speaker 12: I will tell you anecdotally from what I have seen
Speaker 12: in focus groups, what is so compelling to me is
Speaker 12: the lack of understanding around why we are allowing them
Speaker 12: to be victim to the algorithm. And that is why
Speaker 12: the National Parents Union and me personally, I am such
Speaker 12: an advocate for KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act, because
Speaker 12: the real problem that we face is the lack of
Speaker 12: regulation around social media and the lack of protection for
Speaker 12: our kids and what they are allowed to be influenced by.
Speaker 12: And frankly, every minute that we waste kind of having
Speaker 12: this convoluted conversation is it the device or is it
Speaker 12: the app? Like I'll tell you, it's the app we
Speaker 12: actually have as parents, cell phone device management software that
Speaker 12: we utilize many of us utilize at home. And this
Speaker 12: is where it gets kind of crazy, right because again,
Speaker 12: as I said, the very real concerns that folks bring
Speaker 12: up about distraction, like there are ways that we can
Speaker 12: innovate our way out of this. I know in my house,
Speaker 12: I use an app called Aura. It's literally like I
Speaker 12: have control over my kids devices. I can control when
Speaker 12: they're on the Wi Fi. I can control exactly what
Speaker 12: apps they use. I can track their text to make
Speaker 12: sure that there's no like there are keywords, so that
Speaker 12: if there are issues that they're dealing with that they
Speaker 12: get flagged. For me, why aren't we doing that? It
Speaker 12: would be so smart and so easy to be able
Speaker 12: to create that bubble over schools, or have folks register
Speaker 12: these numbers so that they could be restricted during the
Speaker 12: school day while at the same time giving parents the
Speaker 12: access to their kids and having that open line of communication.
Speaker 1: Let's break this up first on. She talks about having
Speaker 1: these apps like Aura that can really kind of control
Speaker 1: everything on the phone. To me, the way she lays
Speaker 1: at that sounds like a pretty good solution that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem impossible for a school to implement.
Speaker 8: I don't know how it would work. I am skeptical
Speaker 8: of that.
Speaker 1: Do you think kids would be able to get around it?
Speaker 8: Kids?
Speaker 2: Did you have like yeah, like face like the school
Speaker 2: computers that wouldn't let you on Facebook?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we had specific stuff like I The issue is
Speaker 6: the kids know more about the stuff than the parents.
Speaker 6: To do whatever solution you're going to have to implement,
Speaker 6: you have to be able to implement with everybody. And
Speaker 6: I can see that working in some schools, right or
Speaker 6: some classrooms where everyone is down. But what if three
Speaker 6: or four of the kids' parents are like, actually, I
Speaker 6: don't want that installed. The issue is like whatever you
Speaker 6: put into place, they are going to people who don't
Speaker 6: want to do it.
Speaker 2: The technology doesn't seem that complicated, like if on my
Speaker 2: sports gambling app, for example, if I'm in a certain state,
Speaker 2: it's just as bloop, you can't use it here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that seems easy if they do implement some kind
Speaker 2: of like bubble over these schools that like don't let
Speaker 2: you use.
Speaker 6: I'm just sorry, we can't get like schools books. We're
Speaker 6: gonna be implementing bubbles Like this is the thing with
Speaker 6: these apps and stuff. It's like, yeah, it's gonna work
Speaker 6: at like private schools or schools that already have a
Speaker 6: lot of resources. The schools that really need this the
Speaker 6: most are not gonna be able to implement this stuff.
Speaker 8: They can't get like Trump is currently.
Speaker 6: Trying to Bend a department of education, and we're talking
Speaker 6: about getting smartphone apps. We gotta be realistic about what
Speaker 6: it's like, what we're going to be able to do.
Speaker 6: And I think installing apps on every kid's phone that
Speaker 6: goes to that school is the most roundabout way to
Speaker 6: just stop kids from using their phone.
Speaker 8: Just take the phones away.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She also before I even had a chance to bring
Speaker 1: it up, she had a response to my go to
Speaker 1: answer of just go to the front office like I
Speaker 1: used to back in the day.
Speaker 12: And the other thing that I just I have to
Speaker 12: address because I know our friends are going to say, well,
Speaker 12: if you want to contact your kid, they want to
Speaker 12: contact you, just go to the go to the phone.
Speaker 2: In the art.
Speaker 1: I say, this is my when I first was having
Speaker 1: this conversation, this is what I was thinking. So what's
Speaker 1: your answer to that?
Speaker 12: Freaking wild I want to be like, do you have
Speaker 12: kids in a school, like an actual school. Have you
Speaker 12: ever tried to call and get a hold that God
Speaker 12: blessed that school secretary. Okay, here in Massachusetts you got
Speaker 12: two three thousand kids in a high school trying to
Speaker 12: get a hold of your child in that school building
Speaker 12: or having them get a hold of you in a
Speaker 12: line of kids, and that's that's not again in keeping
Speaker 12: with reality, the schools have yet to figure out how
Speaker 12: to effectively communicate with parents and families. So there's a
Speaker 12: lot of work to be done on the other end
Speaker 12: so that schools can earn our trust that they've got it.
Speaker 8: Fair point. I think Jesus one hundred valid.
Speaker 6: I think if you want to take people's phones away,
Speaker 6: you should be able to notify the parents. If there's
Speaker 6: a drill or a lockdown, you should probably figure that out.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, to close out, she told me that
Speaker 1: it's not just the phones that are creating this disengagement
Speaker 1: in the classrooms, but maybe teaching methods need an update
Speaker 1: or a change.
Speaker 12: The issues that we have with cell phones and the
Speaker 12: obsession and the amount of engagement we have with this
Speaker 12: technology is really a symptom of a greater disease, and
Speaker 12: that is the fact that kids are disengaged from our classrooms.
Speaker 12: We don't have good classroom management. You know, the little
Speaker 12: four year old kid who can't wait to tell you
Speaker 12: everything they know about dinosaurs and all the facts and
Speaker 12: everything they've learned. That fire is extinguished, that sparkle leaves,
Speaker 12: and that's the real problem, is that our teens, their
Speaker 12: brains are seeking that engagement. So I think that, like
Speaker 12: when we double click on this, like, shouldn't we be
Speaker 12: asking the question like why are our kids who are
Speaker 12: so hungry for knowledge, who want to learn, why are
Speaker 12: they so checked out about what's actually happening in the classroom.
Speaker 12: Because where you will see a difference, teachers that have
Speaker 12: the ability to engage kids, that have really good practices
Speaker 12: around classroom management generally don't have a hard time around
Speaker 12: keeping kids off cell phones. And that is really if
Speaker 12: we really want to address the issue and get to
Speaker 12: the core of it, I mean, you could ban it.
Speaker 12: I guess is it really going to address the problem?
Speaker 12: I don't think so.
Speaker 6: Talking about like the real world work is boring. A
Speaker 6: lot of times, you're going to be bored in places.
Speaker 6: Not everything is going to be engaging, And I think
Speaker 6: part of learning to be an adult is learning how
Speaker 6: to be bored in a way that is productive.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I think.
Speaker 6: That just because your teacher is boring shouldn't be an
Speaker 6: excuse for you to be on your phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, of course not.
Speaker 8: But I do agree that.
Speaker 6: Just getting rid of phones does not mean that kids
Speaker 6: are strongly going to be better at learning. You have
Speaker 6: to complement that of also engaging them in new ways.
Speaker 6: We're not suddenly matching China in terms of education because
Speaker 6: we took the phone.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a lot easier to believe that, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, a kid's not going to excel just because
Speaker 2: you take their phone away. But it's a lot easier
Speaker 2: to believe that a kid is failing to excel because
Speaker 2: their phone is there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So this leads me to the next
Speaker 1: thing I want to look into when we get back
Speaker 1: is do these bands even work? Okay, so now we've
Speaker 1: heard from Sabina who is for the bands, and then
Speaker 1: we heard from Carrie who's against the bands. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to find out if we've actually seen any results
Speaker 1: as far as academic performance or mental health. Do these
Speaker 1: bands even work? So looking into the research, it's pretty
Speaker 1: difficult to sort out what's actually effective and what's not.
Speaker 1: There's so many different variables across schools, states, countries, not
Speaker 1: to mention social media algorithms always changing, COVID, etc. All
Speaker 1: of which is a long way to say there's no clear,
Speaker 1: conclusive evidence at this point. To say phone bans are
Speaker 1: good or phone bands are bad. But there have been
Speaker 1: some studies with more to come on the way, So
Speaker 1: here's a little bit of what's out there. One study
Speaker 1: from twenty sixteen out of England saw schools that had
Speaker 1: bands had improved test scores, especially among low performing students.
Speaker 1: The researcher said the effect of the bands was roughly
Speaker 1: equivalent to an extra hour of schooling per week. A
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two study in Spain saw a reduction in
Speaker 1: cyber bullying and two regions with cell phone bands and
Speaker 1: positive test scores. Question of mental health is a little
Speaker 1: murkier and points to some of the issues are experts
Speaker 1: discussed earlier in the episode. For example, one study from
Speaker 1: the University of Birmingham in the UK compared mental well
Speaker 1: being among students with restrictive and permissive school phone policies.
Speaker 1: They found no evidence that restrictive policies helped mental health
Speaker 1: outcomes in students and ultimately said that these policies need
Speaker 1: further development. So now that we've heard all of this,
Speaker 1: have you guys changed your minds at all?
Speaker 2: I think after everything we've heard definitely really good points
Speaker 2: that I hadn't thought about before on the against band side,
Speaker 2: especially with the implementation of the bands or restrictions, I
Speaker 2: think I'm still leaning a little bit towards some kind
Speaker 2: of restriction, maybe not a flat out band, but hearing
Speaker 2: some of the data from Europe where we all note
Speaker 2: there are not school shootings happening, and hearing the story
Speaker 2: from Sabina, like, I'm just like, there's there's enough information
Speaker 2: out there for me to be like, we should at
Speaker 2: least try it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as clear cut as maybe I wanted
Speaker 1: it to be at the.
Speaker 2: Start, and I'm certainly you know, there seem to be
Speaker 2: people who are like I guess more alarmists about the
Speaker 2: phones and schools than we are. Like, I just think
Speaker 2: it would be a healthier environment for kids. But I'm
Speaker 2: not like going to protest or anything.
Speaker 8: Like don't have kids.
Speaker 1: School.
Speaker 2: They won't let me within ten feet school.
Speaker 1: For another episode, Devin, you were you were pretty.
Speaker 6: Frank, came in flat than Yeah, pro you feel I
Speaker 6: still feel that there should be a flat ban bell
Speaker 6: to bell before this, I would say we should do
Speaker 6: it yesterday. I do think there's some some work needs
Speaker 6: to be done way to Yeah, I don't think we
Speaker 6: should do it tomorrow, because I do think there's some
Speaker 6: valid concerns of like, yeah, I didn't think it, but
Speaker 6: you know, I went to a school with like three
Speaker 6: hundred people, so I didn't think about the fact that, yeah,
Speaker 6: if you have three thousand people and you have one
Speaker 6: phone line, even if it's not a school shooting, if
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to call my kid because of something
Speaker 6: it's busy, yeah, yeah, you may get the busy signal.
Speaker 8: It's like, but we figured It's like, there's there's ways
Speaker 8: those things.
Speaker 1: It seems like a couple hundred bucks could fix a
Speaker 1: lot of it.
Speaker 8: I think we should.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we should put our efforts into making those things better, right,
Speaker 6: Like are notifying parents, making it so that parents can
Speaker 6: call the schools and not like hit a busy signal
Speaker 6: versus I want to put my efforts into allowing kids
Speaker 6: to keep their phones but putting apps on it and
Speaker 6: a firewall on the school.
Speaker 8: I'm like, take the phones away.
Speaker 6: Just make it easier for parents to get in contact
Speaker 6: with their kids and for kids to get in contact
Speaker 6: with their parents. But I just think that kids, I
Speaker 6: just there are adults who don't know how to communicate,
Speaker 6: and I'm very worried that these you know, like we
Speaker 6: call them the iPad kids are going to have a
Speaker 6: real tough time in a real world because they're just
Speaker 6: using that phone as a crutch day in and day out.
Speaker 6: And I think it is so easy to get distracted
Speaker 6: in school. We get distracted without phones. So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: as much of the distractions that we can eliminate, the better.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's a magic I guess we were
Speaker 6: saying before, like.
Speaker 8: No more phones. Everyone knows is at an OFFICIAD thirty
Speaker 8: six on the Act.
Speaker 6: But yeah, but like, let's not have more thing Like
Speaker 6: it was hard enough for us to go to school
Speaker 6: without phones, and like pay attention. Let's not allow more
Speaker 6: distractions in the classroom if we can go back.
Speaker 1: To Yeah, I think taking into account a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that I was most surprised by how much
Speaker 1: these people did agree on things, especially with social media,
Speaker 1: and there are these clear practical solutions that don't seem
Speaker 1: they would like they would be particularly difficult to incorporate,
Speaker 1: and I think addressing those would help alleviate this the
Speaker 1: kind of distrust that exists because of kind of how
Speaker 1: chaotic it sounds like it can be to be a
Speaker 1: parent in this day and age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wonder just kind of looking forward. Devin
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier like Trump is probably going to sign an
Speaker 2: executive order. It might be signed by the time the
Speaker 2: episode comes out that basically eliminates the Department of Education.
Speaker 2: I do wonder how much that would play a role
Speaker 2: into the school bands or keeping the phones in there,
Speaker 2: Like if there's even gonna be resources for this, because
Speaker 2: we're already so limited. Damn yeah, we might not even
Speaker 2: be here. There might not be schools at all.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to know such thing. This show is
Speaker 1: produced by Noah Friedman, Manny Fidel, and Devin Joseph. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by Manny. Our guests today were Sabina
Speaker 1: Polac and Carrie Rodriguez. For more, you can subscribe to
Speaker 1: our newsletter at www dot no such thing dot show.
Speaker 1: I'll be dropping links to our guests, websites and other
Speaker 1: information I look that while producing this episode. Let us
Speaker 1: know what you think or if you have any rex
Speaker 1: for more info. Lastly, please give us a five star
Speaker 1: rating and write a nice review wherever you're listening to us.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. Thanks and talk to you again soon.
Speaker 1: God bless, Get off the phones, Oh Pappa on Ring
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