Parents and grandparents have welcomed an ACT move to ban mobile phones in public schools. But younger people say the rules will be hard to enforce.
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00:00 I grew up just before mobile phones were a really big thing and social media was a really big thing
00:05 and I think if I had been in school and had social media as a distraction on top of everything else
00:11 it would probably make life much harder.
00:12 So I feel like it can only be a good thing to try and limit social media in particular and other distractions
00:18 while kids are at school and trying to focus on studying and education.
00:23 I certainly noticed that even at work some people can be a little bit distracted by their phones
00:28 so I'm sure it can be incredibly distracting for children.
00:33 So yeah, I mean again I feel like my view isn't, you know, I don't know, I haven't never done any research on this
00:40 or seen if they've done it in other jurisdictions or anything like that
00:43 but from first principle sure seems like a reasonable idea.
00:45 I think that, you know, like to me it's like, especially at the age that she's at, I can see, you know, communicating with us, sure
00:55 you know, or her friends when she gets a bit older but I don't think that there's any reason why she would actually need it
01:02 during school hours while she's doing lessons.
01:05 So yeah, I'm fine with that.
01:08 In fact, I mean it seems like a good thing to me but again I don't know, I can't foresee every consequence of that.
01:14 But obviously I grew up without a mobile phone in a classroom and that seemed fine.
01:19 Yeah, I think it's a really good idea.
01:21 I think that children these days are concentrating far too much on their phones and their friends and their social networks
01:28 than they are on schoolwork.
01:30 I have grandchildren that are not school-aged yet, will be in a few years and yeah,
01:38 I think it'll be a good thing if it's brought in way before then.
01:42 So they won't even, they'll just go into school knowing that they can't have their phone.
01:47 My understanding is that some of the schools that are doing it in other states have a lockbox and things like that
01:53 or phones are put away in a certain locker and I guess in case of an emergency they'd probably be able to, you know,
02:00 retrieve their phone, use it, contact mum or dad, you know, in the case of an emergency that is, yeah.
02:08 Oh, I think it's a great idea.
02:09 I reckon ACT should be, you know, following New South Wales' footsteps.
02:12 I think Victoria and Queensland, they've all passed it and I hope we do too
02:17 because like we said, you know, children with mobile phones, too busy on them
02:21 and they're not paying attention with their schoolwork and everything
02:23 and we all grew up without phones and look at us, I think we've turned out to be, you know,
02:28 quite decent and everything like that so please bring it on.
02:31 I can assure you that my granddaughter hasn't got a phone so it doesn't really matter personally for me right this minute
02:39 but, you know, for later I think, you know, it'd be a great idea for children to have the phone ban in high schools.
02:46 If anything happens, there's a school office that's still there, they haven't taken that away
02:50 so to me, any child can contact their parents throughout school hours by going to the office and asking
02:57 and I'm sure the teachers will not, you know, deprive them of that so I can't see a problem there at all.
03:03 I think the intent behind it, like, makes sense but I don't think it'll be effective
03:09 because people, like, I don't know, you go into a school, there's so many rules already that people don't listen to,
03:15 you know, so it's, especially like in older years where people are using their phones more
03:20 and they're, like, less likely to listen to rules like that.
03:25 I went into all of my classes and would be on my phone anyway and even if, like, that wasn't enforced upon me
03:33 because my learning was my responsibility but I just think that it, like, wouldn't work in the way that they're hoping it to.
03:42 I do think that mobile phones are a distraction but I think it's going to be really hard to remove that aspect
03:47 now that it's been so prominent in schools, yeah.
03:50 Yeah.
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