Ban the Cellphone Ban

• Published in: Education next Vol. 23; no. 1
• Main Author: Horn, Michael B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Education Next Institute 01.12.2023
• Subjects: Academic Standards; Achievement Gains; Active Learning; Adolescents; Alcohol Abuse; Bans; Blended Learning; Cellular telephones; Child Development; Classrooms; Computers; Depression (Psychology); Education; Educational technology; Elementary Education; Elementary Schools; Group Discussion; Language Laboratories; Learning; Mathematics Activities; Mathematics Instruction; Mathematics Tests; Mental Health; Mental health care; Middle School Students; Middle Schools; Personal computers; Portable computers; Public schools; Rejection (Psychology); School Buildings; School Safety; Smartphones; Social networks; Students; Teachers; Teenagers; United States > US; Massachusetts
• ISSN: 1539-9664; 1539-9672

According to the federal education department, more than three quarters of public schools prohibited the non-academic use of cellphones during school hours in 2019–20. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2021 44 percent of U.S. high-school students reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” in the past year—up from 26 percent in 2009. With the active learning methodologies at the heart of these apps, the learning opportunities on mobile devices are in many ways superior to many of the more passive, video- and text-based ones built for laptops and personal computers. (Even before smartphones, a version of this called “language lab” put individual students at headphone stations to work independently with the education technology of the day before rejoining group conversations.) The phone is central to the design of the learning experience.