Apple and Google Can Help Fix School Phone Anxiety
Smartphones, the smart little pocket computers that we carry around all day are a wonder. Like digital multitools they enable us, and are often required to interact with the world in different ways to the generations before. Along with the long list of positives is another, perhaps equally long one of negatives. Exploited with addictive behaviour patterns by gaming and social media companies, they have become a portal of endless nothing to feed our brains. And those with developing bodies are the most at risk from this exploitation which is why so many schools have taken to outright banning phones.
I recently wrote why I feel this is a short-sighted move here. Merely hiding phones merely turns them into forbidden fruit. Educational programs for responsible use (for children and parents) are not enough; we cannot teach safe driving without getting behind the wheel of a car. Children are also coming to school with computers in their pockets capable of capturing all sorts of data, something I exploited to positive effect in my own past as a high school teacher.
Effective monitoring from parents is enough of a shield to protect teenagers from the negative. Apple and Google both provide granular controls for parents to oversee their child’s phone use, limiting access on a per-app basis and manually introducing more freedoms as they get…
