Most of us will admit that we'd be lost without our mobile phones - but can we expect better from our children? We took to the streets in a city near you to ask: should phones be disallowed in school because of the distraction they cause? Or do they have their benefits when it comes to safety and even aiding young people's learning?
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00:00 I understand that in the classrooms, because fair enough, if you're not listening, you're
00:05 on your phone and you're not listening. But I don't agree with them saying no phones in
00:10 the school at all. Our school had tried to do that at one point and it just never worked.
00:14 People need their phone at lunches to do whatever, and then their way home, their way there.
00:18 I think you can look at it two ways. Obviously, kids are on it way too much, because of TikTok
00:24 and whatnot. But at the same time, if you've got a child that might be a bit more nervous,
00:30 they might need their phone. So make sure they can text their parents when they're going
00:34 home. If they're catching the bus home, make sure they've got the bus. But at the same
00:38 time, they need to be learning in school. So yeah, I understand why they would be banned
00:42 if they were distracted.
00:44 A recent survey by U Switch conducted last year found that the average UK adult will
00:48 spend a whopping five hours using various screens, including phones, TVs, laptops and
00:55 tablets. That's in addition to screen time related to work. When it comes to our children,
01:00 screen time can be useful if spent wisely, of course. But do devices distract kids when
01:05 they should be learning? And what do you do to encourage your little ones to put down
01:09 their tech?
01:10 100%. There are a lot, a lot of research about... It's complicated to say in English,
01:19 but it's just not good for the kids. Because if you expose the kids to the screen, then
01:26 in the long term, they are going to struggle to focus on something else. And there are
01:33 so many researches about how unhealthy it is for kids. Actually, for everyone, but especially
01:39 in kids who they are developing the brain and things like that, it's not healthy.
01:43 I think maybe giving them that forced respite will do them good. Actually, I think that's
01:48 probably a very good idea. I never had them at school and it didn't do me any harm. So
01:52 I think it would liberate them a lot more than they think it will damage them.
01:58 Definitely yes.
01:59 And why is that?
02:00 I work in education. I'm a teacher and it's too disruptive. Every time there's a change
02:05 in class, in the lesson from one exercise to the other, they grab their phones and they're
02:10 occupied with that instead of what they should be learning.
02:13 Do you not think it can be quite useful for class?
02:17 Sometimes, but I think that's only 10% of the time.
02:19 I'm doing my master's in education. So this is one of the topics we've been studying a
02:24 lot in class. So I believe that students should have the right to bring their phones to school,
02:31 but with certain kind of guarantee from the teachers. They should limit the students the
02:40 length of the use time of their phones. And I think most of the time nowadays with technology
02:47 development and I think people sometimes teachers want students to use these kind of phones
02:54 to check or Google some stuff. Maybe they can offer students iPads at school and which
03:00 which can bring them opportunity to find the knowledge.