Smartphones, how did we get on without them? Always close at hand, keeping us up to date and in contact with others. What’s not to love about them?\
Well….Harmful content, sexual harassment, bullying, shaming, illegal content, access to porn 24/7, hate speech, misogyny, violence…. I could go on. And parents are giving them to primary aged kids. Think about that for a minute.
In Scotland there is currently a heated debate about banning them from schools. In my previous life as a youth worker, I worked first hand with young people who had been deeply affected by these and similar devices.
The following may be upsetting.
A girl wakes up on her 14th birthday and excitedly checks her phone for messages. She opens one from a boy in her class, to find a video of him naked and masturbating.
I worked with this girl, supporting her and her family in the aftermath. Some of the attitudes, (from professionals) were that “He’s just a daft boy” and “they all do it” Getting it right for every child? I think not. The girl was traumatised by this, exasperated by the story going around social media instantly.
Innocence stolen just like that. My question at the time was “What if he had run up to the girl, say walking home from school and done it rather than online?” Very different attitude, but what really is the difference?
I used to use a video called “Where’s Klaus” which showed a mother opening her front door to porn stars, a terminator style robot, and showing them to Klaus’s room, before allowing her daughter to leave the house with an older man. The theme being, you wouldn’t do this in real life, but you allow it to happen online.
So what does this have to do with mobile phone use in schools? I wanted to start my blog by facing right up to the devastating impact phone use has on young lives.
Here’s a range of impacts on youngsters when phones are carried at school.
Brutalisation.
Teenagers will fight, school was always a place where disagreements became physical. The first reaction of most youngsters on seeing a fight is to film it. Not try and stop it, film it, share it and get likes. Being devils advocate, it makes it easy for school staff to identify aggressors, and deal with them appropriately. But in the real world, somebody has been beaten up. They are hurt, shocked, embarrassed and they know they are hottest thing on social media that day. Imagine how a young person feels in that situation. Horrific, but this is what it has come to. Imagine getting up for school the next morning knowing most of the pupils in school have seen you being beaten up.
Disruption to Learning.
Imagine teaching a class of 25. Nearly all these youngsters have a phone in their pocket. It soon becomes obvious that some of them are texting each other. The lesson is stopped to address this. Learning time lost. You notice someone else intently looking at their knees in class, miles away, playing a game. Again stop teaching to address this. Someone takes a sneaky picture of you or another pupil and shares it round the class. Again, disruption to learning.
One of the biggest arguments parents come back at schools with is “I need to be able to contact my child and they need to be able to contact me” Again let’s look at both sides of the argument. Is the message so important that it is worth upsetting your child, inside a classroom, and again, disrupting a class full of pupils? If there has been a death or a sudden hospitalisation, phone the school. Someone will ask to see the pupil and take them to a safe space to have any news shared. Less disruption, and more supportive for your child.
Bullying.
Everyone is a tough guy on social media. Threats, offensive comments, all the usual stuff fly around from phone to phone daily. School should be a safe environment for young people, not the place to sit and quietly send offensive messages and material to others. The more sinister side of this is picking on someone, humiliating them and filming and sharing it. I’m aware of videos showing a young person having their trainers taken and being made to beg for them back. Usually with a bit of physical violence thrown in too. The footage is then shared online. Again, how would it feel to be the victim of this? Doesn’t bear thinking about.
We are never going to stop teenagers being teenagers. There will always be bullies and unpleasant people out there. Removing phones from schools removes a whole layer of this that wasn’t a thing 25 years ago.
The last school I worked in, was one of the first schools to ban phones, and they are locked in a pouch at the start of the day, and apart from lunchtime, they are locked in until the end of the day. Not perfect, but a huge step in the right direction. I’m proud to say I was the first person to catch a youngster who had put his phone in the pouch as requested, but had another one in his pocket he was using!
Schools should always be a safe and supportive place to learn. Not just academic , but life skills, and going into the world of work, you won’t be able to have your face in your phone all day..
Thanks for reading
Pete
What have they done to our kids 