Six years ago, as officials at the Netherlands’ Calvijn College began considering whether to ban phones from their schools, the idea left some students aghast.

“We were asked whether we thought we were living in the 1800s,” said Jan Bakker, the chair of the college, whose students range in age from 12 to 18 years.

While the majority backed the idea, about 20% of the parents, teachers and students surveyed were staunchly opposed. Some were parents who worried about not being able to get hold of their children during the day, while a handful of teachers argued it would be better to embrace new technologies rather than shun them.

Still, school officials pushed forward. “Walking through the corridors and the school yard, you would see all the children were on their smartphones. Conversations were missing, the table tennis tables were empty,” said Bakker. “Basically we were losing the social culture.”

  • Whirling_Cloudburst@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’ve been waiting for the Ultraviolet Paper Phone for years. If they existed, I bet they would be sneaking them in. They might even have blackmarket phones being sold in school. They can’t surf the web or use apps though.

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    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      Yeah and that’s actually exactly the problem that they are trying to solve. No one is taking any phone calls in class, they are browsing tiktok and diss each other on YouTube and whatever.