Does a school smartphone ban make any difference?

Smart phones are part of modern life, but the amount they use can be a battleground, in which parents and schools often have young people on one side and the other. So what would be the effect if the children left their phones – even if for a short time?

Meghan was interested in digging his device, but said that his friends thought of being without a smartphone – and within innumerable apps – was “ridiculous”.

The 15-year-old is one of the 32 students who participated in a project in school to swap their high-tech handheld items for ‘brick’ phones, which could deal with the call but cannot be on the Internet.

Despite the suspicion expressed by Meghan’s colleague group, he decided to hand over his phone as part of a three -week project at Ecclesfield Secondary School in South Yorkshire.

He said, “I wanted to do it because I think I feel as big as I realized that whatever you see on your phone can be harmful, so it can be good to come away from it,” he explained.

Along with the students, four employees abandoned their smart equipment as part of the scheme, which had a cooperation among the school, Shefield Hallm University, Mati and Carrier Teachers.

Did Meghan manage to survive without his internet and social media phones for the project?

She said it was “easy” as much as she was in the beginning.

Meghan said that there were more opportunities to do other things away from scrolling.

“I was done more homework, but it was my favorite thing to talk to my family,” he said.

“Before I was upset, I would go to my room and scroll on Tiktok, but now I did not have my phone, so I had a lot of conversation to my mother.”

The idea for the project came from Liz Hunter, which teaches personal, social, health and citizenship education in Ecclesfield.

He said, “You don’t have to work in education to see modern mobile phones on our children,” he said.

Ms. Hunter said that people who participated in the project had reported “a lot of positive, less concern, better friendship, more time to engage in better sleep and other activities”.

Earlier this year, a parliamentary bill that suggested Ban on smartphones in schools and addictive algorithms Water was fed to get government assistance with the aim of young teenagers.

Head teacher Richard Walkden, who has been in charge for eight years, has become a big talk point in the UK, said that he is proud of students and employees who participated.

“My role is to protect childhood,” he said.

“We banned mobile phones from school many years ago. They frightened me. They grow children quickly.”

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Other students spoke to the BBC, they also said that they have found the phone break useful.

12 -year -old David said that the project had given him more time to help his father work with wood.

“It was quite good,” he said. “I couldn’t do dangerous items, but my father helped me join and work with resin.”

After receiving his phone back, he said he did not think he had “left”.

He said, “I had a group of messages from my sticker -filled form GroupChat.”

The 13 -year -old bye did fishing work during the project using his grandfather’s kit.

“I went out almost every day,” he said.

But the teenager confessed to “missing” his phone when he caught a fish and wanted to “celebrate” with a picture.

Olivia said that he got the experience “quite free”.

The 15-year-old said: “I think there was no burden of responding to every message.”

But did the short project create long -term changes?

Olivia was in two minds.

He admitted that although he had now reduced the use of his smartphone, he felt herself “slipping in old habits”.

Online security regulator reported in February 2024 that 99% of children spend time online and nine out of 10 children are owned by a mobile phone, until they reach the age of 11 years.

He found that children in the age group of three of the five secondary school were contacted online in a way that they probably feel uncomfortable.

Ms. Hunter said that the school was now seeing how they can spread the message to encourage their children to “lower their lives”.

He said: “We are looking at our school policies for mobiles. We want to do more work with parents, and we are also looking to work with our local primary schools and preparing children to catch children at an early age and think of their phone usage.”