Students Do NOT Need Cell Phones to Do Their Schoolwork
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder debunks the claim that students need personal phones for academic purposes.
Key Takeaways
- Low-tech tools work - Pencils, paper, calculators, and school-issued devices cover every legitimate academic need
- Phones aren't learning tools - The claim that students need their personal phones for class is a rationalization, not a reality
- Remove the excuse - When phones are banned, students and teachers discover that learning proceeds just fine without them
Transcript
Students do not need cell phones to do their schoolwork and there are low-tech tools that are better for just about everything.
There's this idea that we have to give students constant access to their cell phones because they can use them for learning and we just need to teach them to use their cell phones appropriately.
And I think that's just total baloney because nothing can compete with every form of entertainment that exists on a cell phone, right?
Like nothing we do in schools can be as interesting or as engaging as the opportunity to communicate with every other person on the planet and access all entertainment content and social media content ever produced.
just no way we can win that battle.
And it's better to just not fight that battle and say, we're not going to try to use cell phones in learning.
We're not going to try to use them as music players or calculators or research tools because we have better, simpler alternatives that don't have all those downsides, right?
Like your calculator, you know, like I had to buy my kid a calculator for middle school math and it was annoying because it was like 30 or 40 bucks.
And you know, it's only like 50 cents to manufacture a dumb calculator, right?
In 2023.
but I've gladly paid it because it means my kid is not on a more powerful device that will connect them to a world of distractions and disruptions like on a smartphone.
So yes, your phone can do that stuff, but it is better to have low-tech, dumb, purpose-built tools that get the job done.
It's kind of like a pencil, right?
If you had a pencil that was also a squirt gun, you would say, well, yes, that has more features and it's kind of an all-in-one, but obviously the distraction of a pencil with a squirt gun is just too great for students to handle.
And nobody would say we should just teach students to use the squirt gun appropriately because we know what's going to happen is they're going to squirt each other throughout class.
And it's just like, just use a dumb pencil.
And when it comes to the cell phone, we just lose our minds on this because we know we like our own phones so much.
We empathize with students.
You know, we think, you know, once you've paid for it, why not take advantage of it?
But the evidence is really clear now that we can't compete with the distraction of phones and constantly being on devices is harmful for students.
You know, not having that seven hour break due to the school day is really, really bad for students developing brains.
If you look in the Atlantic, John Haidt has a great piece yesterday on just the research and links to a lot of the research on how cell phones are just a terrible idea in schools and what specifically they do to students developing brains.
So check that out at the Atlantic.com.
I just think we've got to stop making this argument that we can use cell phones appropriately for learning, just like we don't use squirt guns appropriately for learning.
Like just use something lower tech that is not going to have all of those distractions because it's just not worth the effort.
Let me know what you think.