alt.hn

7/20/2026 at 4:00:34 PM

Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

 https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/czech-news-in-brief-for-july-20-2026-monday-top-afternoon-headlines

by Markoff

7/20/2026 at 4:59:39 PM

Actually effective way to protect kids without massive societal consequences and it also improves learning.

by Cider9986

7/20/2026 at 6:21:28 PM

Stanford researchers studied the second assertion and found no change

https://ed.stanford.edu/news/national-study-school-cell-phon...

by georgeburdell

7/20/2026 at 6:33:43 PM

No immediate benefits but could be beneficial long-term (increased well-being but not the same as learning). Whether things in Czechia are comparable to that US situation I wouldn't know.

by RandomLensman

7/20/2026 at 7:50:36 PM

Bear in mind that those conclusions are for a different student population -- country of course, but also age range:

Czech schools: "The new measure, which has been at the center of heated debates in recent months, will apply in kindergartens and elementary schools, most likely from September 2027. ... It doesn't apply, however, to secondary schools, universities or vocational schools."

The Stanford study was based on "more than 43,000 middle and high schools nationwide".

Also, while half of the authors are Stanford research associates, the other half are at other institutions. The publication is a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

And from the preregistration, "Our measure of treatment (i.e., whether a given school has a true phone ban at a particular point in time) is based on organizing sales and shipping data from Yondr (i.e., a company that sells lockable phone pouches)", a company they partnered with for the study.

How .. odd. Is sales data for a single company really the right way to tell if a school has a true phone ban?

by eesmith

7/20/2026 at 5:01:01 PM

How is this effective at all? Every kid will continue to use them surreptitiously, as they always have.

by basisword

7/20/2026 at 5:10:11 PM

This type of repetitive comment[1] is a bit like the bike lanes discussion:

1.City introduces bike lanes on street.

2. Residents complain about parking spaces going away, businesses complain about future bankruptcies due to fewer customers, general uproar is huge.

3. Residents discover bike lanes are quiet, and they also reduce ambient noise levels due to reduced car traffic, air is also cleaner, roads and intersections are safer.

4. Businesses (re) discover that cars don't buy things, people in big metal boxes going 50+kmph don't buy as many things. But people biking and walking are... foot traffic... and business goes up.

5. City decides to introduce bike lanes on another street.

6. Cycle repeats.

To your point about phones, it is very effective. If nobody can take their phone out on the school premise, suddenly it's very obvious who's trying to break the rule and guess what. Kids play, kids talk face to face, etc.

* * *

[1] This type of comment is one of the first things posted for these types of articles.

by oblio

7/20/2026 at 5:33:57 PM

Agree with all of that but want to point out one thing that is almost always true re: businesses citing loss of parking to oppose bike lanes:

99% of the time the business owners are really just mad that they personally cannot park directly outside their business anymore. They may cite nonsensical things like 2 less parking spaces outside their business will lead to less customers, but what they are really mad about is their own personal parking space going away. Very dumb and selfish

by samtp

7/20/2026 at 5:33:41 PM

Must be location dependent. Where I live you never move beyond 2.

by nancyminusone

7/20/2026 at 6:04:04 PM

> 3. Residents discover bike lanes are quiet, and they also reduce ambient noise levels due to reduced car traffic, air is also cleaner, roads and intersections are safer.

Except that 3 doesn't actually happen... Bike lanes stay empty and kill businesses.

In Seattle and Portland the businesses within 1 block of new bike lanes declined faster after 2019.

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 6:40:52 PM

Interesting. In a city by me, they found that businesses along new bike lanes actually grew by 17%, while the citywide business receipts were static (grew by exactly 0% in inflation adjusted dollars). They were looking at a similar time period (2019-2022). Maybe COVID just hit different cities differently.

Sauce: Culver City Move Pilot Report, page 59 https://www.culvercity.gov/files/content/public/v/8/services...

by Rebelgecko

7/20/2026 at 6:41:13 PM

What are your sources? From 2013: > Leading up to the construction and just afterwards NE 65th St performed very similar to both controls, however two quarters after the project was finished NE 65th St experienced a 350% increase in sales index, followed by another jump to 400% sales index the following quarter.[1]

From 2020 [2]: > "Both the trend analysis and DID analysis show that the protected bike lane on Second Avenue corridor positively impacted employment, especially in the retail sector, when compared to the Fourth Avenue control corridor"

> "In conclusion, the protected bike lane on Broadway triggered a significant employment increase in the food services industry after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."

The overall study finds that

> - On the Second Avenue corridor, the protected two-way bike lane contributed to higher employment and improved business vitality in the retail sector. - On Broadway Avenue, we find that the protected bike lane triggered a significant positive impact on food services employment after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."

and > In terms of retail service sector, we found either mixed results or insignificant results. [...] However, the insignificant results may be significant in this context, indicating that there does not appear to be a negative causal impact of right-of-way or parking lane removal on economic outcomes.

Anecdotally, many people in Seattle seem to use the bike lanes, even to commute to work. I also saw a lot of people using them during the world cup.

[1]https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/06/seattle-case-study... [2] https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/National-Stree...

by hydrolox

7/20/2026 at 9:06:33 PM

My own research. I'll compile and publish it.

And yes, I'm _very_ aware of these papers. I used the same methodology as they did :) Note the timestamp on them, they are from the time when Seattle was booming.

And I even specifically looked at the Fourth Avenue that they used as a control because it also got a protected bike lane.

I have _not_ yet checked this hypothesis thoroughly, but from a cursory look at the data, the increase in business can be explained by highly-paid professionals moving into dense housing nearby (we can see that by looking at real estate prices and historical apartment rent data) and by tourists from cruise ships. It's further corroborated by the fact that the percentage of bike commutes did not increase significantly enough.

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 6:21:17 PM

> In Seattle and Portland the businesses within 1 block of new bike lanes declined faster after 2019.

I wonder if there was some event that generally killed businesses relying on foot traffic some time after 2019 that could help explain that outcome. Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.

by Jtsummers

7/20/2026 at 6:34:44 PM

I would appreciate sources from the GP but the claim was that businesses within 1 block of bike lanes declined faster then those without. The business community as a whole would be serving as the control for other external factors.

by themaninthedark

7/20/2026 at 11:33:24 PM

To be fair, I don't consider my research all that great. This is not a good methodology because it can be affected by hyperlocal effects. I just used the same approach as in papers that looked at the _benefits_ of bike lanes.

There is very little good-quality research on wider impact of bike lanes on business in the US. One pre-COVID study found little effect in either direction when a large LA neighborhood added bike lanes.

The only definitive result for the US is that bike lanes have very little impact on the absolute percentage of bike commutes (it stays around 2-3%).

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 6:45:22 PM

Or maybe the general urbanistic upswing was able to overcome business-killing properties of bike lanes before?

If you look at research on bike lanes in American cities (or in other well-designed human-oriented modern cities), they typically _at_ _most_ don't affect businesses. There's scarce evidence of them helping anything but creating traffic jams.

> Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.

I live in Seattle, and that's what initially motivated me too look at modern urbanism. I was very much a proponent of "stong towns", transit, and all other stuff before. Then I noticed that areas that get an "urbanistic renewal" always get worse around here, and that was even before COVID.

Now the difference is just stark. Seattle Downtown is a ghost town. Bellevue (a city across the lake from Seattle) did not do anything significant with its downtown car infrastructure, and it's thriving. And even in _Seattle_ a place called "University Village" is doing fine. Because it's away from transit, bike lanes, and has a lot of free parking.

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 6:15:30 PM

Source? There are so many explanations for that beyond just "bike lanes kill businesses".

by jmcgough

7/20/2026 at 6:29:28 PM

My own research, using business tax receipts following the same methodology as in PeopleForBikes papers. Yes, I'm compiling them into a book.

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 6:31:18 PM

"after 2019" - you cannot be serious here right?

by Griffinsauce

7/20/2026 at 9:13:21 PM

> declined faster after 2019

Is your study discovering the effects of... COVID-19? I guess you've just discovered your own analogy of https://xkcd.com/1138/

by oblio

7/20/2026 at 11:20:34 PM

Quite possibly yes. But remember that argument when people tell you about the benefits of bike lanes and cite studies about them.

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 5:19:00 PM

and completely seriously:

7. right-wing gains power and bans bike lanes anyway, labeling them "leftist"

city after city in various states/countries

but back to phones

the real problem is they can't rule that parents must be responsible for their children

I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating

because of course it's a problem, but it's not the root cause of the problem

ps. I am so old we weren't allowed to have calculators in school, absolutely forbidden

by ck2

7/20/2026 at 9:11:24 PM

> the real problem is they can't rule that parents must be responsible for their children

It's impossible for the average parent to police their child's smartphone. They just don't have, and never will have, the technical skills.

> I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating

And for those parents, which are quite rare, that do have the technical skills AND the involvement to ban smartphone usage at young ages, guess what. When Joey and Mickey and Sarah all have smartphones and are doom scrolling TikTok, even those parents lose. If all socializing moves to smartphones, the weirdo kids that don't have them or access to the "cool stuff" are automatically excluded. It's extremely alienating and nothing like not having calculators or PCs.

Back in your day (or mine), huge corporations more akin to drug dealers employing tens of psychologists weren't trying to get kids addicted to calculators.

by oblio

7/20/2026 at 6:19:26 PM

I can only speak for what I've seen, and my state has banned phones during school.

Before the ban, students would just openly use devices during class. Teachers were essentially powerless to do anything. Kids would be openly playing games, watching videos, etc with practically no recourse.

Now with the state law actually forcing it, enforcement is mugh higher. If phones are caught out the administration takes the devices and requires a parent to come into the school to sign off and release the device.

Does some usage still happen? Sure. Is it far less than before and considerably less during actual classtime? Absolutely.

It's like you're arguing murder still happens even though it's illegal so what's the point of making it a crime.

by vel0city

7/20/2026 at 5:47:58 PM

Every kid? Seriously?

by cromka

7/20/2026 at 5:08:09 PM

[dead]

by happypappy123

7/20/2026 at 5:10:17 PM

The only friction here is 'you're not allowed to do that' - which doesn't typically work on teenagers. We had the same rules for dumbbphones and iPod's 20 years ago and it didn't work then.

by basisword

7/20/2026 at 6:32:23 PM

Fwiw when I was in school kids would definitely check their phones from time to time or send an occasional surreptitious text. But it wasn't as pervasive as it is today- I was pretty shocked to see even at the elementary school level how much class time kids spend on their personal devices

by Rebelgecko

7/20/2026 at 6:18:05 PM

> which doesn't typically work on teenagers

Depends. You have "good kids" and "bad kids".

If this law helps the good kids, then that's at least a win.

by amelius

7/20/2026 at 5:18:14 PM

In many US schools, they'd take those things away (and return them at end of day, typically) 20-30 years ago. But it helps when it's policy, if it's not a policy then the teacher has no backing from the school.

by Jtsummers

7/20/2026 at 5:18:46 PM

It definitely reduced usesge though. I was the same age in teens with dumb phones and they were only banned in class. Either way, it's better to have the restrictions in this case than a free for all because teenagers will push limits constantly. I don't see a downside to this.

by bilekas

7/20/2026 at 6:25:28 PM

It absolutely worked in my school a little over 20 years ago. Teachers and staff always took away disallowed devices and that set the tone quite well.

by zdragnar

7/20/2026 at 5:20:46 PM

If it’s legally grounded you get more options.

by throw1234567891

7/20/2026 at 5:12:56 PM

I've talked to parents of kids where they banned smartphones and the difference is palpable. And good.

by oblio

7/20/2026 at 6:37:22 PM

Eh? It did work. You'd get it confiscated off you.

by dbbk

7/20/2026 at 7:48:34 PM

German here. Have a kid in elementary school and one in middle school. No phones allowed whatsoever. But to be fair: every school in Germany can decide that for themselves. But when we were choosing schools, all schools had similar rulesets. Some event prohibited smart watches.

by perelin

7/21/2026 at 5:13:49 AM

Czechia had per school rules as well (my kids school bans them in school premises, which leads to groups of kids starting at phones in front of the school, sad sight), but as discussed yesterday by minister of education it's clearly not effective and still huge part of kids use them during school breaks despite more than 90% school officially banning them.

Czechia was one of the, if not the last country in EU without nationwide smartphone regulation

Btw I can't imagine putting my kids in education system in country where you don't have home schooling alternative to state indoctrination in case you need it. And German 2015 immigration crisis and green deal clearly show us your leaders can't be trusted at all.

by Markoff

7/20/2026 at 5:35:14 PM

Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things?

For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change?

Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"?

You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements.

by Aerroon

7/20/2026 at 6:12:36 PM

The ubiquitous availability of smartphones also limits kids freedom. It creates a very particular style of interaction with peers where quitting means you are left out. That means kids are subject to apps that prey on insecurities, have extremely addictive properties, force feed constant doomerism messaging on them, etc just to stay connected. Another way to look at it is it’s a tax on the joy and freedom of being a kid.

This is a freedom-from / freedom-to distinction. Once you look at kids as a social group rather than as a single individual I think you can come to very different conclusions about what is on balance healthier.

by npunt

7/20/2026 at 5:53:41 PM

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms

Children’s freedoms ought to be limited, yes.

by hamper653

7/21/2026 at 4:23:02 PM

Any actual reasons or are we limiting them just because? Vibe based governance?

My parents were sure that sitting too close to a TV ruined your eyesight. Should we get a law that forces people to sit at least X meters from the TV? Personally I'd like to see some evidence first, instead of "but we must limit freedoms".

by Aerroon

7/20/2026 at 6:19:31 PM

"This law might force kids into doing something other than whatever they want, whenever they want, with zero consequences. What happened to freedom?"

So many people have wacky ideas on how to raise kids these days. I question the effectiveness of laws like these, but they are worth trying out. And I think a lot of parents in my generation (millenials) need some serious assistance with teaching kids boundaries.

by cael450

7/20/2026 at 6:31:24 PM

> So many people have wacky ideas on how to raise kids these days.

Keep in mind that, while you feel like they’re millenials because you are one yourself, many of these people might be kids themselves. That’s the problem with children having access with the internet: there cannot be no boundaries anymore, everyone is an equal being their anonymous account.

by hamper653

7/20/2026 at 5:42:30 PM

They’re limiting freedom of children in school, who already don’t have the freedom to ignore other school policies.

Studies show phone bans help school performance, albeit not by much immediately, but there’s not much upside.

by armchairhacker

7/21/2026 at 4:46:53 PM

Can any of these studies actually show measurable results in something like PISA? Because "studies show" during the replication crisis is not convincing when the effect doesn't seem to show up in actual test scores.

You can easily see the effect of COVID in PISA scores for example.

by Aerroon

7/20/2026 at 5:50:33 PM

If something is hard to measure, is it automatically bad in your eyes ?

by simlevesque

7/20/2026 at 5:56:15 PM

This was my takeaway. I'm imagining arguments against mitigating climate change along the same lines.

by the__alchemist

7/20/2026 at 5:46:23 PM

There's been several pilots that prove this being very effective. Czechia is not first doing this.

by cromka

7/21/2026 at 4:36:39 PM

Great - let's hear the measurable benefits then.

How much higher will Czechia's score be on the next PISA test based on this?

France:

>Mobile phones have been prohibited for students from 3 to 15 years of age, since September 2018, although they were first banned in classroom time in 2010.

French PISA results for math, science, reading:

* 2022: 474, 487, 474

* 2018: 495, 493, 493

* 2015: 493, 495, 499

* 2012: 495, 499, 505

* 2009: 497, 498, 496

I'm really impressed by the improvements of nothing.

by Aerroon

7/20/2026 at 6:27:24 PM

Forcing kids to go to school is already limiting their freedom

by perfunctory

7/21/2026 at 4:39:17 PM

Because we're already limiting their freedom we should limit their freedom some more?

What logic is this?

by Aerroon

7/20/2026 at 6:32:20 PM

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements

I think people like you are the reason I’m a strong supporter of the concept that people should pass an evaluation and get a permit to have a child.

Of course the freedom of choice for children is limited because their brains are not mature enough to make an educated decision and quite gullible. That’s why it’s illegal for them to drink alcohol, drive vehicles and smoke cigarettes.

by sajithdilshan

7/21/2026 at 4:43:32 PM

My faith in humanity is dropping lower than I thought possible. Do you actually have a reason for why you feel what you feel? Can you give me evidence that doing the things you suggest would actually improve things?

Because to be it looks like you are the gullible ones because you are not making educated decisions. France banned mobile phones in school in 2018. Suddenly some kind of a ban had been in place since 2010. Go look at their PISA scores and see if you can notice any improvement. Because I can't.

How can you even call others gullible when the measures you're talking about don't actually show up in measurements of education systems?

by Aerroon

7/21/2026 at 8:47:36 AM

> I’m a strong supporter of the concept that people should pass an evaluation and get a permit to have a child.

Of course that, like literacy tests for voting, will never be gamed.

by eesmith

7/21/2026 at 5:20:19 AM

I think it's more a mental health or social interaction thing rather than expecting improved school results, some studies even show no short term increase in results.

But you don't need study to know kids staring at phones instead of talking and playing together is improvement.

by Markoff

7/20/2026 at 5:53:41 PM

ALL modern electronics should be banned from regular classrooms, up to and including projectors. We now have evidence that at _best_ it does not help. At worst it's actively harming students.

(yes, yes, with obvious exemptions for special needs, computer science classes and so on).

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 5:17:05 PM

I don't understand the legislative pushes for some of these things.

Schools can already say "no phones during instructional hours". Many of them do. I guess legislating it can mandate the policy across a school district, state, country etc., so perhaps that makes sense.

But others call for outright bans for kids, all the time. Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.

by asveikau

7/20/2026 at 5:48:14 PM

But if kids refuse to put their phones away during classes, teachers have no right to take them since they are the kids' personal property. And yes, it is in the school rules that you cannot use your phone during class.

My SO teaches English and struggles with it permanently. Kids are on their phones and not paying attention to the lecture. And no support from the headmaster. Other teachers claim they do not have the problem to save face, but then you talk to an expat teacher who was in their class for observation and hear something else.

by vitro

7/20/2026 at 6:01:25 PM

> But if kids refuse to put their phones away during classes, teachers have no right to take them since they are the kids' personal property. And yes, it is in the school rules that you cannot use your phone during class.

Is this true? When I was in high school, teachers could take away your phones.

by whateveracct

7/20/2026 at 6:08:38 PM

Well yes. A teacher can have a box for phones, but kids need to put the phone there themselves. Of course, depends on the relation teacher has with their kids, but that's how you should do it by law.

And even then, if the teacher trips the box, it is on them to reimburse owners for broken phones.

by vitro

7/20/2026 at 6:36:14 PM

Kid gets two options: hand over the phone, or sent to the principle's office. Parent can pick them up and the kid can come back without the device the next day.

Same effect, a difference with only a nominal distinction.

by zdragnar

7/20/2026 at 6:09:53 PM

I don't understand how people fail to understand how public policy works. You can tell people to do something and they may or may not ignore you depending on how you say it, and what incentives and penalties you provide.

Being a parent or a teacher puts you in a position of fighting multi-billion dollar corporate interests that are trying to capture your kids' attention. It's also fighting their very successful advertising campaigns that makes kids, just like adults, feel FOMO for not having the latest gadgets, or access to the same social media outlets as their peers.

Any public policy trying to counter this needs some weight behind it, and a strong consensus as to what we value as normative behavior in society.

by flatline

7/20/2026 at 8:14:07 PM

> It's also fighting their very successful advertising campaigns

If you want to talk about successful advertising campaigns, things like age verification laws are actually being lobbied by Meta. In other words, Meta wants to do this and is spending money to make it happen. That should make you suspicious.

> Being a parent

I am a parent. I really hate it when people pull out this "parents say this ..." crap as if it's a shortcut to winning an argument. They don't want to have a discussion on the merits. A lot of the people pulling out that line seem to be childless, if it matters.

by asveikau

7/20/2026 at 5:19:52 PM

Have you talked to a teacher lately?

by throwa356262

7/20/2026 at 8:11:46 PM

I'm the primary caretaker to two kids. So yes.

by asveikau

7/20/2026 at 5:32:31 PM

Parents are responsible for a surprisingly large fraction of the notifications kids get at school

by Rebelgecko

7/20/2026 at 6:02:12 PM

> Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.

If you talk with teachers, some of them complain that kids are on the phone with _parents_ during the class time. And that parents loudly complain to the headmaster if the teacher tries to prevent their child from speaking to them.

Yes, it sounds crazy, but it's true.

by cyberax

7/20/2026 at 5:33:49 PM

We were told no phones in schools. I used my phone. They confiscated it for 2 weeks. I was like yeah fair enough.

I don’t understand why this isn’t done now?

by HtmlProgrammer

7/20/2026 at 5:50:53 PM

My kids were basically required to have a phone for school. In theory they could use a laptop for everything but in practice it was assumed you had a phone.

They were supposed to use the calendar for assignments (and were given time to use the calendar), the teacher would tell them to take a picture of the white board with their homework assignment on it, and they used some private app (don't know the name of it) for messaging the teacher.

This was a few years ago though, so maybe now the tide has turned?

Edit: The rules have changed:

https://tea.texas.gov/taa-letters/implementation-texas-house...

by criddell

7/20/2026 at 6:43:34 PM

That’s actually pretty cool if they’re being taught to use the organizational tools of the phone.

I’m strongly against phones in school, but as a child myself, I was extremely unorganized. And did not get my act together fully until college, when I had a simple laptop with a calendar app where I could plan out all my classes, assignments, etc.

by RiverStone

7/20/2026 at 6:21:46 PM

This is pretty wild, I had no idea any school was like this. What grade and area was this in? Public school?

by tyrust

7/20/2026 at 6:37:00 PM

High school, central Texas, public school. I think the idea was to teach appropriate use of devices.

by criddell

7/21/2026 at 5:15:39 AM

that would be illegal right now, kid/parents can call police you stole their phone and you would be in trouble with police, any school rule isn't above the law, which is why there must be confiscation option clearly mentioned in the smartphone ban law

by Markoff

7/21/2026 at 8:05:45 AM

Same here in uk-- phones are not allowed (at least in my count yin England)-- and if found are confiscated.

by shantnutiwari

7/21/2026 at 9:16:47 AM

I hope that it'll have a positive impact on kids' attention spans

by ChrisRR

7/20/2026 at 5:48:48 PM

This doesn't go far enough, in my opinion. I think all screens should be banned from schools. No TV, no phones, no projectors, no slides. No shortcuts for anybody, no distractions. Everything handwritten. I know this sounds like I'm sarcastically criticizing phone bans but I'm serious.

(Edit: obviously will need some accommodations for disabled students, and computer labs will have to exist for technical literacy classes.)

by quacked

7/20/2026 at 6:04:18 PM

Actually, I benefited from a school-issued Chromebook. I mostly used it for note-taking (I'm bad at handwriting) and homework. Even though it allowed some simple browser games, I suspect it was less distracting, and the browser games could've been banned if the school used a whitelist to make it even less so. Even with paper students can be distracted by doodling and daydreaming.

But I wouldn't oppose banning those as long as the schools provided an AlphaSmart (because again, I'm really bad at handwriting). I think e-readers would be best but those are expensive.

I think banning tools for teachers, like projectors, is unnecessary. I suspect I learned easier from projected computer screens vs. staring at a whiteboard, but anything projected on the screen (e.g. powerpoint presentations) could be passed to students on paper, except movies but those may rarely be necessary.

by armchairhacker

7/20/2026 at 6:03:44 PM

Whether those things are distractions depends on what they're used for.

I'm fairly certain schools had projectors a few decades ago, and nothing bad came of it.

You don't really need to ban phones from schools; just ban them in class. I don't know why this stuff is treated as such a big deal. Students should pay attention in class, which means not using anything (not devices, paper, books, etc.) except as needed for instruction.

by ronsor

7/20/2026 at 6:09:31 PM

Phones should be banned from children’s lives altogether. They have no benefit for them, only harm.

by hamper653

7/20/2026 at 6:14:36 PM

Yes, yes, we've heard that about books, radio, film, television, and game consoles. I'll put your complaint in the queue.

by ronsor

7/20/2026 at 6:25:42 PM

> books, radio, film, television, and game consoles

None of these tools is designed for the sole purpose of interacting with random people on the internet.

A child can get all the potential benefits of a phone from books, radio, film, television and game consoles — all the while not interacting with random people on the internet.

by hamper653

7/20/2026 at 6:01:11 PM

How would that be beneficial? We don't need to make teachers' jobs more difficult than they already are by removing all the aid brought by digitalization.

by ZpJuUuNaQ5

7/20/2026 at 5:57:05 PM

TVs are good when used appropriately. We watched Macbeth for the literature class.

by troupo

7/20/2026 at 6:47:17 PM

[dead]

by jmye

7/20/2026 at 6:36:13 PM

Ban social media for anyone under 18 while you're at it

by shdh

7/20/2026 at 5:39:46 PM

Seriously, why isn’t this implemented everywhere?

by armchairhacker

7/20/2026 at 4:16:14 PM

Workplace next!

by everdrive

7/20/2026 at 5:21:00 PM

I think you might need to narrow down what kind of workplaces... A taxi/bus driver, agreed. A an integration engineer, hard disagree.

Either way, when you're an adult, assuming you would be in a workplace, you're maturity should decide. If you want to be a distracted employee and risk termination, you're an adult.

by bilekas

7/20/2026 at 5:48:55 PM

Yeah, especially in Indian scam call centers.

by weezing

7/20/2026 at 5:06:09 PM

At the same time as a lot of other countries.

by nephihaha

7/20/2026 at 6:36:09 PM

Don't they have more important issues to tackle?

by mono442