Title: A Debate on Banning Cell Phones at Middle Schools: Perspectives and Insights

My town just announced that they are banning cell phones at the middle school age level, and I have some mixed emotions about this. And the stitches were off on this video, so I’m gonna tag the creator so you can go back and read the comments, because there were a lot of good comments in the video. Really good discourse happening in the comments, which I love to see. I can totally understand parents being apprehensive about taking cell phones away in the beginning of the day. I have a child who’s going into middle school this year, and she doesn’t have a cell phone yet, and we’re gonna be waiting as long as possible to get her one. But I also work in a middle and high school where we do take the cell phones away in the beginning of the day. And I’m a huge supporter of students not having their cell phones throughout the day for a lot of the reasons that were in the comment section of that video. But one that I didn’t see talked about, and that is when the students don’t have their phones, they actually talk to each other. They actually sit in the cafeteria and talk to each other. They sit in passing and talk to each other, and they communicate with each other. Because what do they do when they have a phone? They sit on their phone instead of talking to each other. And that’s so important. Something I wanna see happen a lot more so they can actually build those friendships without a screen between them.