Just like Australia did:
I believe they are banned in schools in Vaud, and I think Geneva too.
I wonder what they do with diabetic children who have their glucose monitors linked to their phones.
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They are banned in our town in ZH as well, and also smartwatches. It was also strictly prohibited to take any electronic devices in the class camp.
Neuchâtel too but they do make exceptions in cases where they are necessary for medical reasons. There aren’t many of those amongst school kids though.
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I am not sure current teaching methods are best suited to today’s world
Smartphones are extremely powerful tools
I believe schools should teach children the best ways of accessing information using them, how to recognize misinformation, the importance of seeking credible sources and how to get the best from using AIs.
Why learn a language when your phone can translate and even speak it for you.
There probably are good arguments for teaching subjects like ethics, philosophy, which cannot be easily replaced by smartphones
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I read about one teacher who turned AI on its head and asked the class to write an essay using only AI. Easiest homework ever.
Next lesson they had to take those essays and correct them where AI had got it wrong…
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I can only think about a crazy priest who thought people should learn to read and interpret texts themselves. Don’t rely in a middleman to interpret the Bible 
its the adults on the handy that you have to worry about. not the kids
To really protect kids there must be a ban on helicopter moms.
FTFY. There are helicopter dads too.
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She needs her cellphone to unlock her laptop. This is a bad translation of 2-factor authentication.
Anyway, 2-factor authentication is a nightmare. One reason to quit my job would be the abuse of 2-factor authentication for the most banal stuff, and I get logged out very frequently. I can’t believe it’s used for school. Who the f*** wants to have access to a student’s account?
(end of rant)
Around 14m00s: the thinking is that if children are older when they get their first cell phone they’ll be less likely to come under social pressure.
It would be more honest if “thinking” is substituted by “premise” or " hypothesis". But very concerned citizens are not able to be this honest because it’s not an hypothesis, it’s a truth.
But, I shouldn’t get lost in a single tree, let’s look at the forest. The content of the sentence is ridiculous. As adults we fall to social pressure. The desire for conformity is stronger than sexual desire in lots of people. Somehow, we blame the phones for the weakness adults show everyday to children. Sure, no phone will teach the child how to be the strong and assertive person I am not.
PS, is this repackaged Catholic guilt?
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I think this makes sense, it is about network effects, if everybody is on FaceSnap and you are not, then maybe invitations are sent through that and you are excluded, or conversations take place there.
By removing it for everybody, you eliminate the “but everybody else has one” problem.
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It is important that kids develop social networks, in fact I would say it’s critically important. By this I mean face to face social networks, not via the internet. Not all children find this easy, those on the spectrum in particular and educators need to monitor students to ensure bullying and other anti-social activities are nipped in the bud and that shy students are not left out.
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There are legit reasons (IMO) to keep children away from social media. A couple years ago a weirdo hit on me on a video game built-in chat. Conversation started about my “beautiful” name in the game, wtf? Then asked about where I live, how old, etc. Insta-block and report to game developer. Enough to worry about children in the real world, no need to add social media to them.
About network effects, people will always feel excluded one way or another. Adults complain about not meeting the right people for business, or how some decisions are only taken by a few ones. Elephant in the room are all the languages spoken in Switzerland, sensitive people feels excluded when someone else speaks something they don’t understand.
With all that said, a social media ban for less than 16 YO is not a bad idea. There is no need to make the rearing of children more complicate that it is.
The handy kills the childhood.
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