Limiting mobile phone use

‘Phones are constantly pinging and vibrating and alerting you to something new. Most ADULTS can’t keep them out of their hands – I’m as guilty of that as anyone. So how can we expect kids to not be distracted by phones when they’re meant to be learning at school?’

Most high schools have a bring-your-own-device policy for laptops and help for students who can’t afford them, so the excuse that kids need their phones for their learning doesn’t cut it.

And phones have no place in the playground either. If you’ve been past any school at lunchtime or recess where phones are allowed, the kids aren’t kicking the ball around or chatting. They’re on their phones. Guaranteed.

Phones are already banned in all NSW Primary schools, and parents have been calling on the NSW Government to do the same in all High Schools. So why haven’t they?

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell argues the current policy of letting secondary schools set their own rules works. She says she trusts individual High School principals to get the balance right, with many having some sort of restriction on phones already.

But if that’s the case, why not make it a blanket ban to take away any doubt?

And this argument that phones are part of kids’ lives and they should learn to use them responsibly is all well and good, but phones are DESIGNED to get you to use them, and keep using them for hours and hours on end.

Phones are constantly pinging and vibrating and alerting you to something new. Most ADULTS can’t keep them out of their hands – I’m as guilty of that as anyone. So how can we expect kids to not be distracted by phones when they’re meant to be learning at school?