Parents welcome phone ban in schools

The Canberra Times

Parents and grandparents have welcomed an ACT move to ban mobile phones in public schools. But younger people say the rules will be hard to enforce.

Transcript

00:00 I grew up just before mobile phones were a really big thing and social media was a really big thing

00:05 and I think if I had been in school and had social media as a distraction on top of everything else

00:11 it would probably make life much harder.

00:12 So I feel like it can only be a good thing to try and limit social media in particular and other distractions

00:18 while kids are at school and trying to focus on studying and education.

00:23 I certainly noticed that even at work some people can be a little bit distracted by their phones

00:28 so I'm sure it can be incredibly distracting for children.

00:33 So yeah, I mean again I feel like my view isn't, you know, I don't know, I haven't never done any research on this

00:40 or seen if they've done it in other jurisdictions or anything like that

00:43 but from first principle sure seems like a reasonable idea.

00:45 I think that, you know, like to me it's like, especially at the age that she's at, I can see, you know, communicating with us, sure

00:55 you know, or her friends when she gets a bit older but I don't think that there's any reason why she would actually need it

01:02 during school hours while she's doing lessons.

01:05 So yeah, I'm fine with that.

01:08 In fact, I mean it seems like a good thing to me but again I don't know, I can't foresee every consequence of that.

01:14 But obviously I grew up without a mobile phone in a classroom and that seemed fine.

01:19 Yeah, I think it's a really good idea.

01:21 I think that children these days are concentrating far too much on their phones and their friends and their social networks

01:28 than they are on schoolwork.

01:30 I have grandchildren that are not school-aged yet, will be in a few years and yeah,

01:38 I think it'll be a good thing if it's brought in way before then.

01:42 So they won't even, they'll just go into school knowing that they can't have their phone.

01:47 My understanding is that some of the schools that are doing it in other states have a lockbox and things like that

01:53 or phones are put away in a certain locker and I guess in case of an emergency they'd probably be able to, you know,

02:00 retrieve their phone, use it, contact mum or dad, you know, in the case of an emergency that is, yeah.

02:08 Oh, I think it's a great idea.

02:09 I reckon ACT should be, you know, following New South Wales' footsteps.

02:12 I think Victoria and Queensland, they've all passed it and I hope we do too

02:17 because like we said, you know, children with mobile phones, too busy on them

02:21 and they're not paying attention with their schoolwork and everything

02:23 and we all grew up without phones and look at us, I think we've turned out to be, you know,

02:28 quite decent and everything like that so please bring it on.

02:31 I can assure you that my granddaughter hasn't got a phone so it doesn't really matter personally for me right this minute

02:39 but, you know, for later I think, you know, it'd be a great idea for children to have the phone ban in high schools.

02:46 If anything happens, there's a school office that's still there, they haven't taken that away

02:50 so to me, any child can contact their parents throughout school hours by going to the office and asking

02:57 and I'm sure the teachers will not, you know, deprive them of that so I can't see a problem there at all.

03:03 I think the intent behind it, like, makes sense but I don't think it'll be effective

03:09 because people, like, I don't know, you go into a school, there's so many rules already that people don't listen to,

03:15 you know, so it's, especially like in older years where people are using their phones more

03:20 and they're, like, less likely to listen to rules like that.

03:25 I went into all of my classes and would be on my phone anyway and even if, like, that wasn't enforced upon me

03:33 because my learning was my responsibility but I just think that it, like, wouldn't work in the way that they're hoping it to.

03:42 I do think that mobile phones are a distraction but I think it's going to be really hard to remove that aspect

03:47 now that it's been so prominent in schools, yeah.

03:50 Yeah.

03:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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