I am comparing a drug to a drug that’s the whole point. Phones are drugs. For adults and children alike.

The problem is not in the phone itself. It’s in the lack of doing things that kids should normally be doing at that age. They will play with their phone instead of playing physically (less tonus), sleeping (constant tiredness), talking with their parents (learning) or other kids (socializing).

I know kids like that in my family. You can tell from the dark lines under their eyes that they spend most of their day staring at a screen. And if you ask them to play outside they just don’t know what to do, they need access to a screen even with other kids. It’s really a scary sight. And its a drug yes

I’m all in to get programming classes where children learn to code on PCs. That’s a high pass for me. But AFAIK children aren’t doing programming on their phones.

In general i doubt using a phone at school is going to help them program or teach them about technology. They have plenty of time to explore phones on their own when they get home, especially now that kids don’t go much outside anymore. It’s not like a school ban would be cutting that away from them.

We can all agree that alcohol isn’t bad by itself and that we can learn to use it safely (don’t drink too much, knowing when we had enough etc…). And yet we keep away alcohol from children. Why? Because it is a well-known fact that children may not have the capability to limit themselves; they might very well become addicted and fall into it.

Why should it be any different for mobile phones? We know it can become an addiction. And we also know that children do not have the means to limit themselves because of their young age.

Deliberately letting a kid having a phone for an indefinite amount of time is being irresponsible. What would be responsible is only allowing to use the phone for a limited time.

Schools banning phone could be one way towards that. It would be a good way too because the kid would not be suffering from any social pressure from their peers as everyone would be concerned with the ban.