TORPY: Cellphone ban in schools is a bid to prevent mush brains

Hilton expected pushback from parents but was surprised it never materialized.

In fact, the bill passed the state Senate 54-2, an amazing outcome during these days of divisive, fractious politics. You couldn’t get that consensus even if you asked: “Isn’t pie delicious?”

Hilton noticed that states as politically different as California, Arkansas and Florida were all moving to bans and figured there must be something there.

Schools have been heading this way for a couple years after it became apparent that the ubiquitous devices are turning kids’ concentration and thinking patterns into mush.

“This needed to be done,” said Jeff Hubbard, a longtime middle school teacher and president of the Cobb County Association of Educators. “Student engagement has cratered, discipline is down and student achievement is down.”

He said students bump into each other in the hallways, lost in their phones. “It has overtaken their social being,” he said. “It’s like they are stunted.”

Annette Anderson, from the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, was quoted in her school’s website: “Smartphones are also changing how our young people pay attention. They’re distracted, and it now seems like practically everyone has ADHD because they’re being constantly bombarded with images, sounds and all kinds of actions that are potentially interfering with their capacity to concentrate in school.”

I can vouch that smartphones erode concentration. It’s hard to sit still and focus on difficult matters for long periods without taking a “break” to check on a text or even a funny video. And I didn’t even get a smartphone until I was in my 50s. Imagine growing up with them and trying to absorb complex information while your brain is still forming.

The constant interruptions simply splinter one’s attention.

Research has shown that a complete ban throughout the entire school day, rather than allowing phone use during breaks or lunch, allows kids to largely forget about what’s going on in the ether.

“Otherwise, you’re thinking about getting to that phone after class and that’s a distraction,” said Sonya Allicock, an English teacher in DeKalb County.

I spoke with teachers statewide and, naturally, found overwhelming support for the ban.

Kids? Not so much.

Credit: Ben Hendren

Credit: Ben Hendren

Hubbard was picking up his daughter and her boyfriend from school when we talked. His daughter called the ban “stupid.” And her boyfriend chimed in: “If they limit my phone, I’d have to bring my second phone.”

An article in The Los Angeles Times noted that students are adept at trying to flout bans, like turning in dummy phones in the morning to the school lockboxes and then using their real phones.

It reminds me of prisoners, who are extremely motivated to get around an oppressively limiting atmosphere — turning ketchup into moonshine or paper clips into keys. Kids are no less crafty.

Teachers acknowledge students will try to beat the system, but a unified and consistent enforcement will wear down such recalcitrance. Besides, if they’re the only kid in the class sneaking with their phone, then who will they text?

The distraction with phones is twofold, said Georgia Association of Educators president Lisa Morgan. First is kids getting absorbed with their devices rather than paying attention in class. Second is the time and effort a teacher must spend dealing with those kids and their devices.

Like several teachers I spoke with, Sharon Doe (her real name), a physics teacher in Augusta and VP of the Georgia Association of Educators, has had to confiscate a student’s phone. It’s often not pretty.

“Of course, there was pushback,” she said. But you’ve got to stand firm.

The devices “give them an escape,” Doe said. “But they give them an escape at the wrong time.”

Martissa Moore, a fifth grade English teacher in southwest Georgia, spends lots of time defusing arguments kids are having online. Other teachers said phones are used to set up real fights and then broadcast the violence, hoping that the ugly incidents go viral.

Credit: Ben Hendren for the AJC

Credit: Ben Hendren for the AJC

Moore has taught kids for 30 years and has noticed great changes in behavior and focus.

“They don’t have the capacity to know what they should,” she told me. “In fifth grade, you should be able write a complete sentence. But I’m having to go back and have them relearn this because they text so much. I’m trying to get them to write a complete paragraph and they’re like: ‘That’s too much.’

“They’re used to writing in texts.”

After the law goes into effect, kids will still have free use of their phones after school. But Moore is happy with the six-plus hours of phone-free time that teachers will receive each day.

“We’ll get back that time we need,” she said.