Recommended read by Caroline Alphonso, education reporter, Globe and Mail: Cellphone bans in schools seem to be working, but some wonder how long that will last.
Policies have been established to remove a common classroom distraction: the cell phone. What does the school year look like now?
Returning to school put Big Tech back in educators’ sights. Experts expect a renewed clash between tech and textbooks as schools and parents reckon with social media’s impact. “Social media platforms TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat spent the last school year embroiled in a lawsuit accusing them of disrupting learning, contributing to a mental health crisis amongst youth, and leaving teachers to manage the fallout.”
“Back to school is happening at a different time this year than was true two years ago,” said Richard Lachman, a digital media professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dr. Lachman doesn’t like the “abstinence” approach provinces with bans have taken. What is the real issue? This question is addressed in the article.
“I don’t understand how anybody has six hours a day to be on a smartphone but this is what the platforms are designed to do.” – Betty Caraway, Professor of Media Economics at the University of Toronto