Teenagers in today’s world live a very technology oriented life. Schools however, do not approve of technology during school hours. This leads to a clash between the students and the teachers and staff, This is where phone pouches come into play. The original idea for phone pouches is for the students to leave the phones in the pouches during class time and they can take them out once class is done. Teenagers obviously do not want to put the phones away so this causes them to rebel against the phone pouches and keep their phones. 77% of schools do not allow phone usage on campus, Most of these schools don’t allow students to even take their phones out at all. This method of restricting phone use is much more effective than phone pouches since phones are basically banned in general.
Students were interviewed at Liberty High School about their opinions on Phone pouches.
Do you think Phone pouches are necessary here at Liberty?
Olivia K: “I think they should be specifically used for testing and not every day because that’s why kids don’t use them.”
Are phone pouches useful?
Lance B: “Yes they can be useful but most of the time they aren’t.”
The main problem with phone pouches is how easy they are to break into and just flat out ignore. All it takes to get your phone out is simply just opening the pouch. Schools could combat this by putting locked phone pouches in place, these pouches need a magnetic key to open them so students can’t have such easy access.
Putting strict rules like phone pouches in place can cause students to rebel and not utilize them. What schools need to do is stop trying to control the students’ property. If the students want to learn they will learn and not be on their phones. This will create a less controlling learning environment and a better place for students to work. This happens with a lot of rules and regulations when they come to schools. The main reason kids have trouble putting their phones away is because they depend on it for almost everything. Phone pouches also can be lost and torn up causing a lot of technical issues having to find all of them and collect the pouches. The phone pouch rules are also not giving students the mental skills they need in order to manage their device in a responsible and timely way. Phone pouches also cause more distractions because when students don’t have access to their devices they will get frustrated and end up distracting others and themselves from doing assignments. While phone pouches might seem like an easy fix to smartphone distractions, the downsides are way farther concerning than the benefits of these pouches. Educators and School members should consider promoting responsible phone use and establish the difference between times to use devices and times not to. Lastly, the goal is not to banish technology from schools completely, but to learn how to implement phone use in an educational and helpful way to learning environments.
