San Mateo High School Bans Smartphones - Should All Schools Do It?

For students at San Mateo High School, just outside of San Francisco, it’s going to be an interesting year. They are the largest school in the country (1,700 students) to go “phone free” as part of a pilot program to analyze whether it’s effective to ban phones in schools nationwide.

Ask any teacher and they’ll agree that cell phones are an impediment in the classroom -- mainly because they are a distraction that can take time away from learning. But they have also been shown to be an impediment to kids learning “in-person” communication. Many kids are more comfortable texting each other than talking to each other these days. There have also been studies that show all that immediate entertainment at their fingertips is “undermining their ability to learn or focus on one subject for an extended period of time.”

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who think the ban is a mistake, especially parents who view it as a safety risk. There’s also the argument that responsible cell phone use is a necessary part of growing up nowadays. Those against the ban say that phones are everywhere and instead of treating them as the problem, they should be embraced as a learning tool. (Yahoo)