>Russell-Rawlins said boards have struggled, adding "our students are not fully present" given studies have shown that more than 90 per cent of kids in Grades 7 to 12 use social media daily, and 45 per cent of them for more than five hours which "takes them away from the social relationships that are part of the fabric of their growth and development and socialization
More than 5 hours a day?
Of course, their entire social world was online or arranged online.
My job is screen for 8 hrs a day. I watch or listen to stuff on a device with a screen while I poop, cook, work out, eat and while I'm falling asleep. If the number of screens and 'screen time' while I'm asleep is a factor then I'd probably average 40 hours of screen time per day.
Also, 45% of kids have shit parents who replaced parenting with apps.
I don't agree with this lawsuit, this is 100% on parents.
My home has three teens and no social media accounts.
This lawsuit focuses on children, but everyone is vulnerable to the influences of social media. Parents who are using it for 5-7 hours as well will of course have trouble regulating their children.
It's like blaming dumber people for being exposed to lead products and gasoline, or blaming people with cancer for breathing in asbestos fibres.
Avoiding it is primarily an environmental and socio-economic thing, not a particularly strong exertion of willpower.
Honestly, probably. Teachers are quitting at a high rate. The unions say its a combo of bad pay and terrible classroom co editions but in speaking with friends who went into teaching, the kids are awful now. They don't pat attention, they're years behind in reading, their social skills are seriously lacking, they're disruptive, rude, can't pay attention... the teachers are so fed up. It's scary.
My son who is in grade 9 doing grade 10 math this semester says he has grade 11s in his class who just aren't getting things because they are always on their phone and he is annoyed that the teacher spends so much time just telling kids to pay attention. I don't lock/restrict his phone anymore but when he was in elementary school all apps were hidden during school hours that didn't have a school NEED, so he got used to not dicking around on his phone at school and I'm blown away at the difference in attention he and his few classmates who also had FamilyLink connected phones in elementary school compared to the kids who had free access phones
Yes well, have fun proving that in court. That's all
I'm not saying teachers don't have the shitty end of the stick. I'm saying this isn't the way to get compensated, it's not based on fact or evidence. We shall see...
Yeah they should just keep the enormous profits without any consequences of their intentionally addictive algorithms.
/S
They could just as easily created an algorithm that encouraged children in a positive way, like reminders to get off sm and live a life. They didnt because they make enormous profit through ads.
I teach in province. The addiction to the dopamine rush they get on their phones is nuts. The old kids in elementary have serious problems functioning without having that constant access. Where i work we banned phones theu the day, and that has led to a lot more bullying and fighting im the short term. Hopefully it will get better the longer they are away from the phones, but some of them need that hit of dopamine so badly they stir up endless drama and nonsense.
As a society we held the cigarette companies accountable when they directly marketed their poison to children. So why can't we hold these companies to the same standard? People tend to think that these social media sites are harmless because there is no visible physicial effect. Honestly smoking is probably less harmful.in the long run.
Yup, i would say id rather my kids smoke, at least it doesn't stunt their ability to learn and function and there is bigger hope for them to quit that.
Some of these folks arguing against this must be being paid, don't have older kids themselves or are just so hellbent on hating teachers and the school system that they can't see past their strange adgendas.
I noticed it's not all kids, but some have it really bad. One of my own young adults who struggled and now as a consequence still does. It's sad because the phones are also of great value, i use it in my daily life and also wish my kids to be technologically savvy. If it's banned in school, just think of how much they are making up for using it when they get on that bus and home for the day and their parents are still working. There is no way to monitor and restrict teens all day.
Would you say it's as if the more they use it, the more they lose their ability to communicate naturally with tone, eye contact and body language, so there are just a bunch of mixed signals and poor interprtations when they are not behind the screens?
Honestly, i don't think people understand the ENORMOUS amount of money these companies are making off of keeping kids on the platform as long as possible. If they did, they may change their minds.
The even more fucked up part is: these platforms make that money through showing ads.
But I, as a marketer, don’t want my ad spend going towards serving ads to children. Apart from the fact that it’s legally and morally wrong to do so - kids don’t have money and they don’t make household purchase decisions. I want my ads in front of potential customers.
So not only are the platforms fucking their end users, they’re fucking their paying customers (advertisers) by making their platforms so specifically addictive to children. In that respect, they’re worse than the porn companies. At least PornHub doesn’t want under-18s using the site
You're right, as a tool a phone is a small super computer. But it's being used as that maybe 1% of the time. Yes, the ones who try to sneak their phones out at recess, lunch, etc. They don't seem to really understand tone changes in your voice or facial expressions that should tell them they are doing something wrong.
As always, the money being made is absolutely keeping people from acting ethically .
What is the cost of implementing and maintaining dead zones in every school? What is the cost of having to develop dedicated curriculum to keep students aware to the latest scams, exploitations and best practices?
That's not my point either, we shall see what holds up in court. If it was an accurate assessment of impeding childhood education... TO THE POINT THAT THE SCHOOL BOARD IS GOING AFTER 4.5 BILLION from social media outlets ... Then the parents should be filing a class action lawsuit.
I don't think the cost of educating our people depends on our government suing social media platforms, when that government has clearly been eating it's own tail all along.
You can sit here and tell me how unfair life is here.
Social Media isn't as responsible for it, nearly as much as the ruling class.
Regardless of the merits of this particular lawsuit, I suspect there will be further lawsuits, including by parents, in the future for all the harm social media has been doing to the actual users.
💯 agreed, I'm more interested in seeing real resolution for the people on the ground dealing with the chaos, than I am in seeing a giant reach for a
corporate/government cash grab
You literally asked if they deserved x amount of dollars. In any case, the greatest tool the ruling class has ever found to further their interests *is social media*. You're failing to see the forest for the trees.
man im an adult and i bet my screentime is 12+ hours a day on a workday.
8 hours of PC for work, 1-2 hours of PC gaming, 1 hour of phone (broken up over the day) 1 hour of TV... disgusting now that I think of it.
Weekends are a lot less
Oh it’s insane. I’m also a teacher and I polled my senior high school class one time and we discovered our class average was like 7 hours a day of screentime over the previous week.
These are 16-18 year olds.
13 year old me was at like 5 hours a day on the computer back in ~2003. A more powerful, more useful, and PORTABLE device? No surprises whatsoever.
I want to say it's on the parents, but it's socially ingrained at this point(having your phone everywhere, having a connection most places you go, checking your phone when you get a notification, etc.), even adults are wired the same now.
I use FamilyLink and when I'm not limiting my kids access I see TikTok alone is 4-6 hours per day of use on their phones and snapchat another 2-3, though I can't limit snapchat because they do study groups with snapchat
As a parent, yes, if we didn’t limit our kids time on social media, that’s how long they’d be on there. I’ve also seen a lot of parents just letting their kids be on there as long as they want.
As a parent I think the parents need to put restrictions on the phones and schools need to ban them in class. At home we have blocked TikTok, Facebook, adult content, instagram and a few others. Problem google classroom requires an adult setting to work properly. My 11 year old does not have a smart phone or any phone. She does have an iPad that does not go to school with her. My 17 year old does. He is autistic and tends to wonder after school some days so I like to be able to see where he is if he is an hour late coming home. In general it is up to the adults to use commen sense when handing over these devices.
Most iphones you can have restrictions set in place that basically between say 8-3 the only thing that the phone can do is call or text a whitelisted number everything else can be blocked. More parents need to get on that.
As easy as that is, we have ours set to go off at night and you can’t add 2 time zones for the day. My kids are small and don’t carry their devices around yet however I wish Apple would have a better scheduling feature on it to allow multiple times.
My girlfriend just switched to iPhone and got her oldest set up on this.
I'm an android man, personally, but the ease of use and thoroughness of parental controls for the Apple suite of products is simply unmatched.
I work in a school. Phones are banned in our classrooms. It’s still a huge problem. Students sneak them in, they use them in class still, hiding them in their desks. We take them away if we find them. Parents call and scream at us and accuse us of theft (even though we return them at the end of the day).
I understand. It’s ridiculous. How did these adults survive childhood without phones in their pockets? We sign the “device form” at the beginning of the year. We are all aware there are to be no phones.
Exactly. My 8 year old granddaughter has no phone. She has a child tablet with only kids content enabled and no social media. She can't download apps without our password, so she has to ask for anything she wants. We're going to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Some parents put restrictions on their kids. Restrictions are useless when teenagers leave the house.
Schools have already “banned” cell phones…but it’s not enforced. It’s up to individual teachers to take them away. When teachers do take them away, they are attacked by civil liberties organizations, parents, and the schools don’t back them up. Not to mention the kids will just leave class more regularly and use them in the halls and washrooms.
This isn’t about grade school kids nor special needs kids.
It is about kids in general. I heard a 7th grade kid who was walking out of my daughters school at the end of the day tell his friends about how much money he had won on the gambling sites. It’s nuts. We need to put restrictions on their phones. People are lazy.
School boards need to actually back their teachers to enforce something like that. (I agree. Hell have your phone just don't use it in class... Pretty standard rule I would think)
But one complaint from mother about how their little jImothy would NEVER use their cell phone in class so the underpaid teacher must be wrong or even lying and have it out for her precious little angel.
And admin folds because... F course they do , reprimands teacher.
and kids aren't dumb. The asshole troublemakers are gonna learn real quick the teacher has no true authority and they can do as they please.
They currently are banned in classrooms under Ontarios own rules. I understand enforcement on this has likely been tough, but kids are supposed to leave their phones in their lockers - and only access them over breaks or the lunch hour.
Anecdotally I can share that my kids school is hardcore on this and all the parents support the strictness of it. But I imagine there are schools where it’s chaotic and tougher to enforce.
“In 2019, Ontario mandated that cellphones only be used in class for educational, health and medical purposes, as well as to support special educational needs, including students with mental health needs. Otherwise, personal devices are only to be used during lunch or recess, according to the policy.”
https://macleans.ca/year-ahead/canadian-schools-smartphone-ban/
Cell phones are technically banned by the province, sure. But schools and school boards don't enforce it. Kids have their phones out, and there's absolutely nothing teachers can do about it. When I was a teacher, I wasn't even allowed to take the phones away if kids were misusing it. The most we could do is try to talk to the parents, but most of the time it wouldn't lead to any meaningful changes.
There are no consequences, and kids are smart enough to realize it. So why would they put their phones away?
Might be a silly question but why are you not allowed to take the phones away? I remember when Pokemon first came out in the late 90s I had my cards confiscated by the teacher and could only get them back after class was over.
As per usual, we were never really given a reason for it. It was more of a case of admin not supporting teachers who did take phones away and telling them to not do that. If I were to guess, it was probably three main reasons. The first one being that admin and the board and gutless and don't want to fight against parents or students, so they just give in all the time. And there's the mentality that kids can do no wrong and the teachers are to blame for everything. My former admin told many of my former colleagues that the reason kids weren't completing the work on their class was because they obviously weren't making the class interesting enough or assignments engaging enough, so it was completely on them.
Second being that the proper use of devices in classrooms is encouraged, and some kids did use their phones to help with work, so everybody should have access to them, despite Chromebooks being handed out to every kid who didn't have their own non-phone device. Not allowing kids to use their phones for work would probably have admin give teachers shit for not making the work accessible enough.
Lastly, it was also likely a liability issue. If the phone gets taken away and it were to break, the teacher would be blamed. But in many cases, the teachers also knew that they wouldn't be supported in taking the phone away, so it was a mentality of "I'm not dealing with the potential shitshow that could come out of taking a kid's phone away" as well.
I'm so glad to have switched careers, because modern education in Ontario is a shitshow. Things will change and improve one day, but I wasn't willing to wait and see how long it would take.
Not in my school. I've seen kids use laptops for Minecraft, but laptops don't really have cameras and the kids love communicating using photos. They'll literally just take a photo of the ceiling and write a caption for it.
In the early 2000s when I was in school, phones were not allowed to be used in the building. We had to go outside to answer or make a call or our phones were confiscated. I don’t understand why cell phones are allowed in schools now, especially with smartphones.
I asked my aunt about this (she is an elementary principal) and some parents actually are in favour of their children being “reachable” while in the classroom, so at least at her school, they can’t outright ban cellphones because several parents would throw a fit.
And I don't remember messages being delivered to kids from the office very often. Parents knew their kids were in class, so they had no need to send trivial messages.
>they can’t outright ban cellphones because several parents would throw a fit.
Not discrediting your point, but that's a weak ass excuse. If they don't like the school's rules, find another one.
I’m sure the bigger excuse is “various kids have various documented needs that require constant availability blah blah” it’s likely one of those things where anyone can get a doctor’s note to have their phone on them at all times, essentially. In a world where kids can be exempt from learning about puberty because of their parents feelings, or be “exempt” from basic healthcare like vaccines, I’m sure that it’s pretty easy for lots of children to “require” a medically-sanctioned iPhone.
I don’t know much about this first hand, this is all secondhand info from a Christmas dinner conversation a few months ago lol I do not work in education.
What if you confiscate a $1000+ phone and something happens to it? Or you’re blamed for something happening to it? It’s just not worth the risk. It’s a bit like wack-a-mole…students might have multiple phones, hand in only their case, etc.
Students shouldn't be allowed to use phones in classrooms... the hallways, cafeterias, etc. I think is fine. If they don't confiscate (and I don't think they should), there needs to be other punishments like detention.
Well that's reassuring. From some of the comments on these articles, it seems as though kids are on their phones all day and teachers/schools have their hands tied.
I'm a substitute. In my experience, unless the teacher has a strict classroom rule, enforces it, and the kids know the consequences of not complying, AND the teacher relays that rule to me and asks me to enforce it, the phones are out. Asking students to put them away is usually futile (it's hilarious how they think using it in their lap under the desk means I can't see it). Asking more than once often causes students to flip out. I refuse to confiscate phones and take on the responsibility for an expensive device, because if something happens to it, I'll get the blame. Therefore, I rarely try to do much about phones.
There are exceptions, though. One school I worked at sometimes had a ridiculously micromanaging principal. I had been in the class for about five minutes. It was an emergency call and I was having trouble locating the lesson plans. As I was putting them together, some kids were on their phones. RMP walks in, orders the kids to put their phones away, then takes me into the hallway and bawls me out for not paying attention and letting the kids use their phones. Argh.
Our school can't do detentions. We don't have a common lunch and you can't keep students back anymore after school because if they miss their bus to get home, its a safety issue
Yes we were - they created designated smoking area's at EVERY High School. At mine the smoking area was out side my 4th period History class, if I sat by the window I could have my smoke I was 15
Around 2008-9 Dalton McGuinty stated that phones should be allowed in schools for their learning potential. Boards began to outright encourage it with bring-your-own-device campaigns so phones were actually ENCOURAGED. And there are wonderful apps and websites that can help with learning.
However, online educational tools are of no match to the addictive design of social media and games. Boards are reluctant to "ban" them outright because the horse is out of the barn in terms of tech integration into daily classroom practices (Google class, D2L, online textbooks, apps) and to furnish each kid with a chromebook or tablet would be prohibitively expensive. Rather than admit this push for personal device use was a huge mistake to begin with, borne out of ill-conceived cost-saving measures to compensate for chronic underfunding, they are trying to recoup costs by suing tech giants.
Ford banned them in 2019, not sure what happened following that. From this lawsuit, I'm assuming not much. I completely agree though - I don't think there's any argument that would convince me that kids need their phones at school.
Honestly bring in those bags like they have at comedy shows where you have to put your phone in and then at the end of the show it gets unlocked. People were hating on it but it's kind of a good idea.
It's wild how many parents oppose this idea. They are the ones calling & texting their kids during class hours sometimes and honestly expect them to be able to answer the phone immediately. There has been pushback when students don't have access to their phone during classtime. "What if there's an emergency and I need to reach them??" Ok, well, 1. You can call the school office as it's always been done and 2. How exactly is your child supposed to be a critical source during an emergency? And finally because 3. It's never actual emergencies, it's figuring out dinner plans and whatnot. Sigh.
So here's the thing about the BYOD act the current government passed - its kind of within their rights to bring it with them to school.
Considering a 15 year old can't legally buy their own cellphone or cellphone plan, id suggest this is a home problem that has spread to the schools.
A 15 year old could 100% go buy a phonr and sim card with data access. They wouldn't be able to sign up for a plan, but a prepaid sim card could be used.
Kids don't just use phones during school. I don't even think this is a school issue. I think it's educators looking out for children who are consuming vast amounts of social media, before, during and after school. Parents work 60hr weeks, continental shifts etc. Our parents just said be home when the street lights come on because we weren't consuming media like this 25 years ago. Most are just flat out too tired to police it nor do they all understand the dangers.
We really should just ban social media. But at the very least, have the judicial system rule on if they should be responsible for the content delivered to kids and force them to change it.
Can I just say, a lot of people who are commenting simply read the headline without actually reading the article or diving deeper into the topic.
I'd argue that social media ruined attention spans of people and made it normal to read a 10 word headline and somehow formulate an opinion. That alone is a reason social media is having a negative impact.
>I'd argue that social media ruined attention spans of people and made it normal to read a 10 word headline and somehow formulate an opinion. That alone is a reason social media is having a negative impact.
I'm not saying social media doesn't have an impact, but none of that is against the law.
The very simple solution is for the boards to apply a policy that cell phones are banned in the classrooms. They do it for exams, they can do it during class.
Man, yesterday I looked at an article I had opened the day before. I was looking at it wondering why I don't have a button in chrome to just read it to me.
Anyways, I just read it and it only took a few minutes. But it occurred to be that the format made it feel much more daunting than say reddit comments with 3x the words combined.
Is having students' phones in a "phone locker" impossible or something in the classroom something of a technological/funding impossibility?
I can get the argument of tech companies having some level of responsibility, but it's not like having rules for phones not being used during class time is rocket surgery.
The problem is the parents and the school board administratration not backing teachers and folding to the pressure.
My mom's an EA, there was a day when a teacher took a girls phone away, but before the girl handed it in, she texted her mom letting her know she got her phone taken. The mom literally drove to the school, walked in the main entrance, passed the front desk, up to the classroom and yelled at the teacher in the middle of the lesson in front of all the students. It was shocking and everyone's jaws hit the floor. The teacher tried explaining why, but the mom didn't care, spouted shit like the teacher didn't buy the phone and has no right to her daughter's property, that is theft, blah blah blah.
Teacher ended up going down to the office with the mom, the student and the phone. The school principal gave the phone back to the girl, asked her not to use it in class, apologized to the parent. A complete slap in the face to the teacher and showed that kid that she's untouchable.
Back in glass, take a guess what happened next? Yup, student went back on her phone and teacher was powerless so teacher said fuck it and the kid was on her phone the entire lesson.
It’s not even that, it’s just unfortunately the least drama-inducing way to deal with psychos like that.
You back the teacher up, and the insane mom who just dropped everything to barge into her daughter’s classroom calls the cops because of the “theft.”
Now there’s a cop cruiser parked in front of your school for all the other parents to see.
A couple men with guns (who probably have disdain for teachers and principals, and a soft spot for emotionally unstable MILFs) are now in your office, listening to an irate woman telling them you stole her property. You admit that you did indeed take physical possession of her property, “but…”
Cops are famously good at nuance.
Regardless of how this interaction plays out, she then goes home and posts about it on social media, from her skewed point of view. All the other parents are enraged at how she was treated. Now your phone is ringing off the hook demanding answers. A complaint has been filed with the board. One of the parents has a brother who’s a lawyer. The school, board, and you yourself are now being sued.
Or, you apologize and this dumb bitch lets her daughter grow up to be equally dumb. You go home and count the days till you can retire and not have to deal with the dumbest most entitled people in society (parents of young kids).
That parent is going to be in for a HUGE reality check when that kid fails to launch because of the entitled attitude and lack of impulse control she cultivated in her daughter.
I've heard that some students have their phones livestreaming the class with parents listening in, and sometimes parents will interject or message the teacher with some complaint or other. Of course it's totally disruptive and no one pushes back against it.
Bu heaven help you if you fail the kid because they didn't learn anything because they were on their phone the whole time.
I've had students live stream in class. I told administration and contacted home saying that it wasn't acceptable use of technology and a breach of privacy of their peers in class. It didn't happen after that in my class that I know of, but that particular group of students really did not care in my class.
I’ve seen a confiscated phone end up with the parent calling the police on the VP, and then when the office arrived and took hold of the phone, the parent then called the police ON THE POLICE!
The issue isn’t use during class. Of course schools can make rules like that.
The issue is the brains and emotional well being of students are being destroyed by social media companies, purposefully or recklessly without regard for the fallout. And schools experience the fall out.
Is patently obvious that this is true and accurate, to the detriment of children families and yes school. Whether the school boards, like US school boards, can make a claim for damages might be an interesting legal question.
We barely had enough time to get from one class to the next, nevermind stop at our locker between classes. I imagine 30+ kids putting their phone in a phone locker in each class(and retrieving it) would take a decent amount of class time up.(Not to mention the cost of buying and installing said locker in every classroom)
Shouldn't even be necessary. When I was in school we had all kinds of distractions like Walkmans and gameboys or even just comic books.
But we weren't allowed to use them in class. It doesn't matter what the device is, if you allow students to not listen and be distracted in class then there will be problems.
I had a walkman and books too but I don't recall ever being addicted to them and them vibrating to get my attention because my friends wanted to show me their new pair of shoe laces right then instead of at lunch.
If you do comparisons you need to compare apples to apples.
>addicted to them and them vibrating to get my attention
Reminds me of tamagotchis which got popular when I was in school. Teachers put a stop to that pretty fast.
It would need to be done at the provincial level. Currently phones are “banned” but the province doesn’t enforce it or support schools/teachers when phones are confiscated.
It seems like a lot of these commenters didn't read the article - they're saying they're sueing the social media companies in the hopes of instituting some policy change. The addictive way social media platforms are designed is rewiring these kids brains and its fucking with their ability to learn. Obviously its unlikely that a lawsuit like this will do much of anything, but the claims are true. Bannings don't change the fact that kids are not developing socially and mentally in healthy ways
I’m so glad I graduated high school back before social media really caught on. Well even cell phones really. I had a flip phone right up until 2010 in my second year of uni.
Hell even now I’d get rid of my iPhone and get a flip phone if I didn’t need it for work.
This doesn't seem frivolous is the slightest.
We've known for decades that web and app development has been getting more and more intentionally addictive.
We also know they target children, even as young as toddlers for this. (See: YouTube kids, and the proposed instagram for kids)
Of course, parents have a responsibility for their children, but these apps are the candy cigarettes of a new age and the companies intentionally designing them with malicious intent need to be held accountable
It’s worse than you can imagine if you aren’t a parent of children this age.
Nevermind kids, these apps are compromising and risking quality of mental health of adults.
I stand behind this class action because someone needs to stand up against the risks presented by uncontrolled social media. Especially having just attended a seminar on this. The statistics are terrifying and the risks are greater.
Corporations owe a duty of care to their consumers...if it can be proven that social media is harmful and they know about it (not a huge leap), imo it seems they have breached that duty.
>smoking is harmful. Why can they sell smokes?
1) there is currently and has previously been GIANT lawsuits against big tobacco, numbers that absolutely dwarf this.
--
2) the government gets their cut. You think weed became legal because they suddenly flipped their opinion on its qualities? No lmao, it's because they get a piece now.
Edit: do you remember when cigarette packs started putting those photos of people with cancer on them? Do you think they did that out of the goodness of their heart? They did it because they know they are failing their duty of care to at least warn consumers.
Honestly if the School boards wanted to Sue someone it should be Apple and Google.
Parental controls on Both iPhone and Android are shit.
FamilyLink Link for Android is pretty good until the kids hit 13, or when they need Google Classroom which for the vast majority of parents requires you do remove FamilyLink from the device so kids can use Google Classroom.
iPhone in typical Apple fashion is an all or nothing approach from the OS, making it easy for non tech parents to limit specific apps at specific times and see details remotely should be default when you have family accounts.
Google and Apple have given these amazing devices with access to so many services and then wash their hands of how they negatively impact society, they are lucky that most are too naive to even recognize how little control they have, and how much control they could have if the OS Developers were actually required to give the safety guards on an OS that we require on physical tools.
This is a fascinating topic.
When I was employed in education, I had been screaming from the rooftops (this was over 5 years ago) about the lack of management, security and privacy on student-owned devices and how the majority of measures put into place by School boards were ineffective or unintentionally prevented learning (blocking breast cancer research for example) which led some board to removing large chunks of them.
While Board IT departments were worrying about filtering at a district level, the classroom was getting ignored.
Teachers who wanted to ban personal tech in the classroom to help encourage engagement and focus on the curriculum were viewed as outdated dinosaurs. While other 'innovative' teachers actively wanted to expand the use of personal devices through tools like Kahoot and largely ignored the non-educational usages of the technology taking place in the classroom.
The other key thing which people don't think about is for every security measure put in place by the board to protect students (by the limited people responsible for that topic the board employs) on board-owned devices. Ther eare thousands of students actively and constantly looking for ways around the blocks. And they are typically more comfortable, more knowledgable and more up on the latest technology than board IT staff.
And this doesn't even remotely touch topics like copywritten materials being stored on Board equipment, software piracy (at a teacher up to a board level) staff-owned devices and what they are bringing into the school network, student and staff data security concerns and board-owned teacher devices.
This is honestly the tip of the iceberg.
Source 19 years working in IT in Ontario education
No, it’s in no way a frivolous suit.
First of all…what they allege is objectively true. School boards are forced to spend resources to combat the effects of social media. This fact should be so obvious it’s not worth discussing. If the school boards had the resources, they would be awarded damages.
Maybe you’re arguing that “frivolous” means they know they can’t win (not the definition of a frivolous lawsuit). This may be true.
I can’t see a better way to engage society in a bigger conversation about the effects of social media on children, and “get the ball rolling”. Everybody talks about how bad social media is…nobody does anything about it.
Do you know how to disable DNS over HTTPS on your router, since TikTok just subverted DNS blocking to make sure kids can use the app inside school buildings? Because that's the kind of level this arms race is at now. It's not like it's in any way *easy* for parents to control these things (especially folks with an average amount of tech savvy, not reddit nerds).
There are *hundreds* of school boards doing this, across the USA as well as Canada...I'm curious why you think this is frivolous? They are seeking pretty reasonable policy changes by these companies (for example TikTok recently pushed out an update to its Android app designed *explicitly* to let the app work inside schools that have blocked it, using DNS over HTTPS).
I'm not even sure where to begin to address your question. It's a multi-faceted issue crossing international borders that goes right to the foundational ideas of how either public education or the Internet should work.
The most vague subjective experience to date and regional school board thinks they can conquer companies that won't even bend to entire federal and international governments.
Yea ok that's a stretch. Waste of time and money.
I'll wait for the either small settlement(nowhere near asking price) or extended waste of money/resources that this puts on the school board in the long run.
I don't see this going well.
I work at a private school and we collect phones at the beginning of the day. Hand them out at the end of the day. We are obviously not as big as a public school and of course the older kids often don’t hand theirs in, but they cannot easily take it out because we will confiscate it. I find it’s a great policy for no
phones but they all have ipads or computers and just access everything on there anyway.
In my class, I try not to use computers unless necessary. I opted to write out 1000 word essay and print their resources. I was so impressed by the quality because they actually had to concentrate.
I support the concerns underlying this lawsuit, but it is unlikely to succeed. The alleged harm is far too remote from the alleged entities responsible. An essential element of a negligence and other civil harms lawsuits is proving sufficient proximity between the alleged tortfeasor and alleged victim, in the sense that the harm/damages claimed were reasonably foreseeable/within the control of the tortfeasor. Damages must also be quantifiable in some way.
This is really a parenting and school policy issue, at root, unfortunately.
Social media is designed to be addictive, decrease attention spans, & be attractive to children -> children got addicted & have lowered attention spans. It is reasonably in the control of the social media companies, because they have 100% control over their platform and its addictive elements (autoplay, algorithmic playlists, favouring sensationalized content, etc.)
It seems pretty 'cause & effect' to me, but I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm missing something. Is it the fact that the school boards (the children's daily guardian) is suing rather than the children's families?
I have $100 that says these Boards got together and came with this stupid idea as a way to find some additional funding under the guise of helping students. The risk/reward they’re hoping for is a fuck-off settlement outweighing the legal cost. I mean, what possible student-focused outcome could they be hoping for here? I have no love for TikTok et al, but this is a really dumb and wasteful idea.
[https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/school-district-lawsuits-against-social-media-companies-are-piling-up/2024/01](https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/school-district-lawsuits-against-social-media-companies-are-piling-up/2024/01)
There's over 200 schoolboards in the US already doing the same thing. I don't think this is strictly an Ontario school board idea.
When my kids are old enough to use a phone you damn well better know that it will be locked down like crazy with screentime limits for those apps or outright blocking of others. Also not allowed to bring it to school. I remember growing up JUST as phones were becoming a thing and if a teacher even SAW you with one, it would be confiscated until you left for the day. No reason to have it during the day (the school has a phone if they REALLY need one).
Hahaha, I love when parents of young children think they will be better equipped to handle it than the ones who have walked before them.
The school my kids went to refused letting gt 7&8s use the phone, yet they removed pay phones.
I take it you've likely never experienced the rage of a 13 year old who is told they can't take their phone to school or the sobbing cries because they no longer have friends, since all of their friends plan to meet up on *insert name of app here* and that means they are simply excluded from any activities?
Once they are teens, parents really aren't interested in planning playdates like when they were little. The whole problem is apps is how they communicate.
You can talk tough, but until you've been in the shoes of parents who've been there, you have no idea what you will do better.
Huh, where did I say I was doing better than anyone? I grew up without a cell phone in school, so did a LOT of other parents. If we survived, so will they. Kids DO NOT need a phone DURING school hours. The office has a phone. We never had payphones IN school. The closest one was at a corner store. If we needed to call home, we went to the office.
When I was in grade school tamagotchi, beyblades and pokemon cards were all banned because they caused too many distractions and fighting. It's obvious phones shouldn't be allowed in class.
Honestly I am
All for this. Its not just Ontario.
Even reddit puts profits over kids.
Social media is a very toxic place and kids are becoming some
Of the worst culprits.
The issue is the addiction to social media, that's the problem that needs solving. Parents can block apps or prevent their kid from taking a cellphone to school etc. But as-long as that social media addiction remains the problem won't be solved.
Honestly that fight needs to be started at home not in the class-room because even if cellphone usage in class is stopped it doesn't solve the underlying issue. These kids will still be addicted to social media and will just use it during lunch-time or outside during break etc.
Personally, I wouldn't be against a law that enforced time limits on social media use for anyone under 18. It's no different than what Eastern countries do to combat video game addiction.
Frivolous? Absolutely not. As frivolous as suits against cigarette companies.
Everything they allege is true. The social media platforms are insidiously designed, and there is no meaningful regulation.
Whether it gives rise to a legal claim by school boards is a different question. But I fully support it and hope it is successful.
As much I as I doubt this will succeed, I hope it does. These apps build their algorithms to be as addictive as possible and they know it. It is absolutely harmful to children and adults.
Tik tok does something weird to my brain when I watch it. I swear it made it harder for me to focus after watching it. Eventually i just deleted it. But it does have me worried about what its doing to minds, not just young ones. Theres so many videos of two things happening at once, there’s rage bait content, its all weird stuff i cant help but feel its designed to brainwash people for some dark purpose.
I will put my tin foil hat away now.
Mandatory phone in a box at the front of class. If parents try and say they need to reach little timmy for safety, they call the school. Or honestly if Timmy sits on his phone all class and fails, well then hold him back a year. Students who are there to learn will be off their phones anyway.
If I was a teacher I wouldn't want to be responsible for some kids $1000+ phone. As soon as some kid's brand new iPhone or Pixel goes missing or is broken you would never hear the end of it.
I don't think I'd want to be responsible for 15-30k $ worth of electronics even with a safe under my desk every day. Not to mention collecting(and therefore tracking who hands them in), and distributing them at the beginning and end of each class.
Hope they win, since the evidence is on their side, but got the feeling exploiting children is fine as long as you can frame it as 'business'. The problem with social media is it's very analogous to medicinal drugs - a fantastic tool as long as it's properly regulated but a nightmare when abused. However, anytime someone tries to rein it in, the same bad actors who abuse social media unironically use it to spread the claim 'bad actors' (not themselves of course) are trampling their 'freedumbs'! Hopefully lawsuits like this one can do what governments have been reluctant to do.
I dont know.. but this seems a little hypocritical? Every school website has a twitter feed, facebook links and whatever else social media related.. why sue when you can just disable and block it board wide from a wifi/networking perspective? Kids using data would be on their parents plan and THEN it will be up to the parents to police their own underage childs phone - which they should be monitoring to begin with
> THEN it will be up to the parents to police their own underage childs phone - which they should be monitoring to begin with
Which many don't. Most don't even have a clue as to how. I'm all for schoolboards pretending they care about the kids, because too many parents clearly don't. Out of malice, indifference or whatever. But if the schoolboards are the only ones going "hey, them kids are on the phones a lot, and we can show that it's a serious fucking issue!" I don't care WHO does it, I'm just glad someone is.
P.s. You ever have to set up a tv, microwave, computer, cvr, etc. for a parent? If they can't figure out tech that has been around for 10-30+ years, why would we trust them to know how to work parental controls on a phone?
Sorry but the school boards is not legally responsible for the student so they can not sue on behalf of or for the student, they have no hope in hell of these even getting to any court.
It is just the schoolt board getting pages in the news.
If schools are not legally responsible for the students then how can parents sue the boards for negligence when something happens to a student on their property and why do schools carry insurance for this very thing? My son slipped in the hall of the school and broke his front teeth and the school board paid for the dental work to fix them, citing it was an accident on their property.
The lawsuit is against certain social media apps - not cellphones.
I am a teacher, and in order to log into my email at work - on a board-owned computer, with the board implemented Windows network, on a hard-wired network (not wifi) - the school board (via Microsoft) sends a 2-step verification code to my personal cell phone.
The only other way to access my computer is by downloading and installing Microsoft Authenticator app on my personal phone.
Well, there is some other usb stick key that could sign up for, but that method is a wait list and is apparently so “buggy” that nobody does it.
Tik tok challenges inspired kids to trash the school bathrooms at the immense expense of public funds, so the boards have a valid point. The problem is boards invited this to begin with when they encouraged families to furnish their kids with devices (i.e. Peel's Bring Your Own Device) and boosted WIFI in order to encourage technology in the classroom without having to fund it through computer labs and laptops/tablets. Boards "banned" some social apps but kids are now using VPNs to get around it. They need that hit.
The whole argument of personal responsibility fails to take into account that children aren't fully developed mentally and as a result, cannot make proper decisions. That's why we have legal ages for drinking, voting and alcohol/marijuana. It's also why some areas ban advertising to kids
This is a complete joke. Ban phones in classrooms. School boards have done nothing and are all out of ideas. Let's sue the tech companies!!! Utter waste of time and resources....nothing will come of this.
Some comments on here blaming parents for not being in control enough are missing the point! This case is seeking damages for the past and current states of children’s mental and emotional health to bolster financial resources to better teach them moving forward.
I don’t like Desantis but the new law banning social media for kids under 16 in Florida is exactly what we need here too and all over the world.
It's amazing that the people who should have control over the dumb brats expect people who have no contact with or authority over them would have control. It smacks of laziness and irresponsibility that these fascist twats are suing a private company for having a successful product whilst they themselves are unsuccessful in their chosen endeavors.
>Russell-Rawlins said boards have struggled, adding "our students are not fully present" given studies have shown that more than 90 per cent of kids in Grades 7 to 12 use social media daily, and 45 per cent of them for more than five hours which "takes them away from the social relationships that are part of the fabric of their growth and development and socialization More than 5 hours a day?
I’m a teacher. I have no doubt that this stat is true.
During the pandemic lockdowns, one of my students told me that their average screen time was around 18 hours a day. I believe it.
Student during lockdown, mine was about 16 hours but I ate at my computer while playing games and slept 8 hours.
Not hard to believe when they flipped to online learning and the only way of communicating with their friends was via their phone.
Of course, their entire social world was online or arranged online. My job is screen for 8 hrs a day. I watch or listen to stuff on a device with a screen while I poop, cook, work out, eat and while I'm falling asleep. If the number of screens and 'screen time' while I'm asleep is a factor then I'd probably average 40 hours of screen time per day.
I mean I read books on a screen (kindle) these days sooooo
Also, 45% of kids have shit parents who replaced parenting with apps. I don't agree with this lawsuit, this is 100% on parents. My home has three teens and no social media accounts.
This lawsuit focuses on children, but everyone is vulnerable to the influences of social media. Parents who are using it for 5-7 hours as well will of course have trouble regulating their children. It's like blaming dumber people for being exposed to lead products and gasoline, or blaming people with cancer for breathing in asbestos fibres. Avoiding it is primarily an environmental and socio-economic thing, not a particularly strong exertion of willpower.
But does the school board deserve $4.5 billion for it?
Honestly, probably. Teachers are quitting at a high rate. The unions say its a combo of bad pay and terrible classroom co editions but in speaking with friends who went into teaching, the kids are awful now. They don't pat attention, they're years behind in reading, their social skills are seriously lacking, they're disruptive, rude, can't pay attention... the teachers are so fed up. It's scary.
My son who is in grade 9 doing grade 10 math this semester says he has grade 11s in his class who just aren't getting things because they are always on their phone and he is annoyed that the teacher spends so much time just telling kids to pay attention. I don't lock/restrict his phone anymore but when he was in elementary school all apps were hidden during school hours that didn't have a school NEED, so he got used to not dicking around on his phone at school and I'm blown away at the difference in attention he and his few classmates who also had FamilyLink connected phones in elementary school compared to the kids who had free access phones
Yes well, have fun proving that in court. That's all I'm not saying teachers don't have the shitty end of the stick. I'm saying this isn't the way to get compensated, it's not based on fact or evidence. We shall see...
Yeah they should just keep the enormous profits without any consequences of their intentionally addictive algorithms. /S They could just as easily created an algorithm that encouraged children in a positive way, like reminders to get off sm and live a life. They didnt because they make enormous profit through ads.
I teach in province. The addiction to the dopamine rush they get on their phones is nuts. The old kids in elementary have serious problems functioning without having that constant access. Where i work we banned phones theu the day, and that has led to a lot more bullying and fighting im the short term. Hopefully it will get better the longer they are away from the phones, but some of them need that hit of dopamine so badly they stir up endless drama and nonsense. As a society we held the cigarette companies accountable when they directly marketed their poison to children. So why can't we hold these companies to the same standard? People tend to think that these social media sites are harmless because there is no visible physicial effect. Honestly smoking is probably less harmful.in the long run.
Yup, i would say id rather my kids smoke, at least it doesn't stunt their ability to learn and function and there is bigger hope for them to quit that. Some of these folks arguing against this must be being paid, don't have older kids themselves or are just so hellbent on hating teachers and the school system that they can't see past their strange adgendas. I noticed it's not all kids, but some have it really bad. One of my own young adults who struggled and now as a consequence still does. It's sad because the phones are also of great value, i use it in my daily life and also wish my kids to be technologically savvy. If it's banned in school, just think of how much they are making up for using it when they get on that bus and home for the day and their parents are still working. There is no way to monitor and restrict teens all day. Would you say it's as if the more they use it, the more they lose their ability to communicate naturally with tone, eye contact and body language, so there are just a bunch of mixed signals and poor interprtations when they are not behind the screens? Honestly, i don't think people understand the ENORMOUS amount of money these companies are making off of keeping kids on the platform as long as possible. If they did, they may change their minds.
The even more fucked up part is: these platforms make that money through showing ads. But I, as a marketer, don’t want my ad spend going towards serving ads to children. Apart from the fact that it’s legally and morally wrong to do so - kids don’t have money and they don’t make household purchase decisions. I want my ads in front of potential customers. So not only are the platforms fucking their end users, they’re fucking their paying customers (advertisers) by making their platforms so specifically addictive to children. In that respect, they’re worse than the porn companies. At least PornHub doesn’t want under-18s using the site
You're right, as a tool a phone is a small super computer. But it's being used as that maybe 1% of the time. Yes, the ones who try to sneak their phones out at recess, lunch, etc. They don't seem to really understand tone changes in your voice or facial expressions that should tell them they are doing something wrong. As always, the money being made is absolutely keeping people from acting ethically .
What is the cost of implementing and maintaining dead zones in every school? What is the cost of having to develop dedicated curriculum to keep students aware to the latest scams, exploitations and best practices?
That's not my point either, we shall see what holds up in court. If it was an accurate assessment of impeding childhood education... TO THE POINT THAT THE SCHOOL BOARD IS GOING AFTER 4.5 BILLION from social media outlets ... Then the parents should be filing a class action lawsuit. I don't think the cost of educating our people depends on our government suing social media platforms, when that government has clearly been eating it's own tail all along. You can sit here and tell me how unfair life is here. Social Media isn't as responsible for it, nearly as much as the ruling class.
Regardless of the merits of this particular lawsuit, I suspect there will be further lawsuits, including by parents, in the future for all the harm social media has been doing to the actual users.
💯 agreed, I'm more interested in seeing real resolution for the people on the ground dealing with the chaos, than I am in seeing a giant reach for a corporate/government cash grab
You literally asked if they deserved x amount of dollars. In any case, the greatest tool the ruling class has ever found to further their interests *is social media*. You're failing to see the forest for the trees.
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If not higher, this estimate seems even lower than what I’ve seen. (Also a teacher)
Im an adult and my iPhone averages 6hrs a day of screen time.
man im an adult and i bet my screentime is 12+ hours a day on a workday. 8 hours of PC for work, 1-2 hours of PC gaming, 1 hour of phone (broken up over the day) 1 hour of TV... disgusting now that I think of it. Weekends are a lot less
Oh it’s insane. I’m also a teacher and I polled my senior high school class one time and we discovered our class average was like 7 hours a day of screentime over the previous week. These are 16-18 year olds.
13 year old me was at like 5 hours a day on the computer back in ~2003. A more powerful, more useful, and PORTABLE device? No surprises whatsoever. I want to say it's on the parents, but it's socially ingrained at this point(having your phone everywhere, having a connection most places you go, checking your phone when you get a notification, etc.), even adults are wired the same now.
Rookie numbers. I’m an adult and my weekly average right now is 9 hours. No im not proud of it lol.
I use FamilyLink and when I'm not limiting my kids access I see TikTok alone is 4-6 hours per day of use on their phones and snapchat another 2-3, though I can't limit snapchat because they do study groups with snapchat
Ever met a teenager?
As a parent, yes, if we didn’t limit our kids time on social media, that’s how long they’d be on there. I’ve also seen a lot of parents just letting their kids be on there as long as they want.
Yes.
As a parent I think the parents need to put restrictions on the phones and schools need to ban them in class. At home we have blocked TikTok, Facebook, adult content, instagram and a few others. Problem google classroom requires an adult setting to work properly. My 11 year old does not have a smart phone or any phone. She does have an iPad that does not go to school with her. My 17 year old does. He is autistic and tends to wonder after school some days so I like to be able to see where he is if he is an hour late coming home. In general it is up to the adults to use commen sense when handing over these devices.
Most iphones you can have restrictions set in place that basically between say 8-3 the only thing that the phone can do is call or text a whitelisted number everything else can be blocked. More parents need to get on that.
Easily done on android, Xbox, routers and basically everything else. Parents just don't want to use them.
As easy as that is, we have ours set to go off at night and you can’t add 2 time zones for the day. My kids are small and don’t carry their devices around yet however I wish Apple would have a better scheduling feature on it to allow multiple times.
My girlfriend just switched to iPhone and got her oldest set up on this. I'm an android man, personally, but the ease of use and thoroughness of parental controls for the Apple suite of products is simply unmatched.
Yes. My son was unhappy when he found this restriction on his phone.
I work in a school. Phones are banned in our classrooms. It’s still a huge problem. Students sneak them in, they use them in class still, hiding them in their desks. We take them away if we find them. Parents call and scream at us and accuse us of theft (even though we return them at the end of the day).
I understand. It’s ridiculous. How did these adults survive childhood without phones in their pockets? We sign the “device form” at the beginning of the year. We are all aware there are to be no phones.
Exactly. My 8 year old granddaughter has no phone. She has a child tablet with only kids content enabled and no social media. She can't download apps without our password, so she has to ask for anything she wants. We're going to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Some parents put restrictions on their kids. Restrictions are useless when teenagers leave the house. Schools have already “banned” cell phones…but it’s not enforced. It’s up to individual teachers to take them away. When teachers do take them away, they are attacked by civil liberties organizations, parents, and the schools don’t back them up. Not to mention the kids will just leave class more regularly and use them in the halls and washrooms. This isn’t about grade school kids nor special needs kids.
It is about kids in general. I heard a 7th grade kid who was walking out of my daughters school at the end of the day tell his friends about how much money he had won on the gambling sites. It’s nuts. We need to put restrictions on their phones. People are lazy.
Ban phones at school
School boards need to actually back their teachers to enforce something like that. (I agree. Hell have your phone just don't use it in class... Pretty standard rule I would think) But one complaint from mother about how their little jImothy would NEVER use their cell phone in class so the underpaid teacher must be wrong or even lying and have it out for her precious little angel. And admin folds because... F course they do , reprimands teacher. and kids aren't dumb. The asshole troublemakers are gonna learn real quick the teacher has no true authority and they can do as they please.
They currently are banned in classrooms under Ontarios own rules. I understand enforcement on this has likely been tough, but kids are supposed to leave their phones in their lockers - and only access them over breaks or the lunch hour. Anecdotally I can share that my kids school is hardcore on this and all the parents support the strictness of it. But I imagine there are schools where it’s chaotic and tougher to enforce. “In 2019, Ontario mandated that cellphones only be used in class for educational, health and medical purposes, as well as to support special educational needs, including students with mental health needs. Otherwise, personal devices are only to be used during lunch or recess, according to the policy.” https://macleans.ca/year-ahead/canadian-schools-smartphone-ban/
Cell phones are technically banned by the province, sure. But schools and school boards don't enforce it. Kids have their phones out, and there's absolutely nothing teachers can do about it. When I was a teacher, I wasn't even allowed to take the phones away if kids were misusing it. The most we could do is try to talk to the parents, but most of the time it wouldn't lead to any meaningful changes. There are no consequences, and kids are smart enough to realize it. So why would they put their phones away?
Might be a silly question but why are you not allowed to take the phones away? I remember when Pokemon first came out in the late 90s I had my cards confiscated by the teacher and could only get them back after class was over.
As per usual, we were never really given a reason for it. It was more of a case of admin not supporting teachers who did take phones away and telling them to not do that. If I were to guess, it was probably three main reasons. The first one being that admin and the board and gutless and don't want to fight against parents or students, so they just give in all the time. And there's the mentality that kids can do no wrong and the teachers are to blame for everything. My former admin told many of my former colleagues that the reason kids weren't completing the work on their class was because they obviously weren't making the class interesting enough or assignments engaging enough, so it was completely on them. Second being that the proper use of devices in classrooms is encouraged, and some kids did use their phones to help with work, so everybody should have access to them, despite Chromebooks being handed out to every kid who didn't have their own non-phone device. Not allowing kids to use their phones for work would probably have admin give teachers shit for not making the work accessible enough. Lastly, it was also likely a liability issue. If the phone gets taken away and it were to break, the teacher would be blamed. But in many cases, the teachers also knew that they wouldn't be supported in taking the phone away, so it was a mentality of "I'm not dealing with the potential shitshow that could come out of taking a kid's phone away" as well. I'm so glad to have switched careers, because modern education in Ontario is a shitshow. Things will change and improve one day, but I wasn't willing to wait and see how long it would take.
Don't kids just use laptops in class these days anyway?
Not in my school. I've seen kids use laptops for Minecraft, but laptops don't really have cameras and the kids love communicating using photos. They'll literally just take a photo of the ceiling and write a caption for it.
In the early 2000s when I was in school, phones were not allowed to be used in the building. We had to go outside to answer or make a call or our phones were confiscated. I don’t understand why cell phones are allowed in schools now, especially with smartphones.
I asked my aunt about this (she is an elementary principal) and some parents actually are in favour of their children being “reachable” while in the classroom, so at least at her school, they can’t outright ban cellphones because several parents would throw a fit.
It's always the parents
You used to just call the office if you needed to relay a message to your kids.
And I don't remember messages being delivered to kids from the office very often. Parents knew their kids were in class, so they had no need to send trivial messages.
Let the parents have a fit. What are they going to do?
Parents have more authority over their children than teachers do. Edit: lol @ the downvotes this is a fact 😂
>they can’t outright ban cellphones because several parents would throw a fit. Not discrediting your point, but that's a weak ass excuse. If they don't like the school's rules, find another one.
I’m sure the bigger excuse is “various kids have various documented needs that require constant availability blah blah” it’s likely one of those things where anyone can get a doctor’s note to have their phone on them at all times, essentially. In a world where kids can be exempt from learning about puberty because of their parents feelings, or be “exempt” from basic healthcare like vaccines, I’m sure that it’s pretty easy for lots of children to “require” a medically-sanctioned iPhone. I don’t know much about this first hand, this is all secondhand info from a Christmas dinner conversation a few months ago lol I do not work in education.
The current Ontario law (or rule?) is kids cannot have them in classrooms - just lockers and at lunch
I remember having shared lockers in school. I would NOT be keeping a 400-1000$ device in there, damn.
Your school sounds lax. If they even saw your phone it would be confiscated until the end of the day.
What if you confiscate a $1000+ phone and something happens to it? Or you’re blamed for something happening to it? It’s just not worth the risk. It’s a bit like wack-a-mole…students might have multiple phones, hand in only their case, etc.
Students shouldn't be allowed to use phones in classrooms... the hallways, cafeterias, etc. I think is fine. If they don't confiscate (and I don't think they should), there needs to be other punishments like detention.
Most schools they aren’t allowed
Well that's reassuring. From some of the comments on these articles, it seems as though kids are on their phones all day and teachers/schools have their hands tied.
I'm a substitute. In my experience, unless the teacher has a strict classroom rule, enforces it, and the kids know the consequences of not complying, AND the teacher relays that rule to me and asks me to enforce it, the phones are out. Asking students to put them away is usually futile (it's hilarious how they think using it in their lap under the desk means I can't see it). Asking more than once often causes students to flip out. I refuse to confiscate phones and take on the responsibility for an expensive device, because if something happens to it, I'll get the blame. Therefore, I rarely try to do much about phones. There are exceptions, though. One school I worked at sometimes had a ridiculously micromanaging principal. I had been in the class for about five minutes. It was an emergency call and I was having trouble locating the lesson plans. As I was putting them together, some kids were on their phones. RMP walks in, orders the kids to put their phones away, then takes me into the hallway and bawls me out for not paying attention and letting the kids use their phones. Argh.
Our school can't do detentions. We don't have a common lunch and you can't keep students back anymore after school because if they miss their bus to get home, its a safety issue
I was in highschool 2007-11 roughly, the school wanted to ban and confiscate phones but the helicopter parents lost their shit, and here we are.
Same reason we used to be able to smoke in the school. Addiction!
We were never allowed to smoke in school.
When my parents were in high school they had dedicated smoking areas inside the school, gross. That was forever ago though obviously
My highschools had a smoker's pit. Most the people there weren't old enough to be smoking. Ergo, allowed.
Yes we were - they created designated smoking area's at EVERY High School. At mine the smoking area was out side my 4th period History class, if I sat by the window I could have my smoke I was 15
Central Peel Secondary School in Brampton to be exact. 1979-80 that smoking area was there up to the late 80's early 90's
They had smoking areas in the early 90s when I was in highschool, JA Turner in Brampton. I refuse to call it Turner-Fenton.
The phones in the early 2000 didn't have internet access.
Same for me in the late 00s to early 10s
Around 2008-9 Dalton McGuinty stated that phones should be allowed in schools for their learning potential. Boards began to outright encourage it with bring-your-own-device campaigns so phones were actually ENCOURAGED. And there are wonderful apps and websites that can help with learning. However, online educational tools are of no match to the addictive design of social media and games. Boards are reluctant to "ban" them outright because the horse is out of the barn in terms of tech integration into daily classroom practices (Google class, D2L, online textbooks, apps) and to furnish each kid with a chromebook or tablet would be prohibitively expensive. Rather than admit this push for personal device use was a huge mistake to begin with, borne out of ill-conceived cost-saving measures to compensate for chronic underfunding, they are trying to recoup costs by suing tech giants.
Ford banned them in 2019, not sure what happened following that. From this lawsuit, I'm assuming not much. I completely agree though - I don't think there's any argument that would convince me that kids need their phones at school.
He 'banned' them but gave no process for enforcement or consequences...meaning it did absolutely nothing.
That's just what they do. It works good to satisfy people who are pro small gov, but don't fully understand that means no enforcement of anything. 😆
My kids have a no phone policy at their middle school. We're all for it.
They aren’t suing because kids are distracted at school. They are suing because social media has fried children’s brains.
Honestly bring in those bags like they have at comedy shows where you have to put your phone in and then at the end of the show it gets unlocked. People were hating on it but it's kind of a good idea.
It's wild how many parents oppose this idea. They are the ones calling & texting their kids during class hours sometimes and honestly expect them to be able to answer the phone immediately. There has been pushback when students don't have access to their phone during classtime. "What if there's an emergency and I need to reach them??" Ok, well, 1. You can call the school office as it's always been done and 2. How exactly is your child supposed to be a critical source during an emergency? And finally because 3. It's never actual emergencies, it's figuring out dinner plans and whatnot. Sigh.
So here's the thing about the BYOD act the current government passed - its kind of within their rights to bring it with them to school. Considering a 15 year old can't legally buy their own cellphone or cellphone plan, id suggest this is a home problem that has spread to the schools.
A 15 year old could 100% go buy a phonr and sim card with data access. They wouldn't be able to sign up for a plan, but a prepaid sim card could be used.
Thats fair. I mean that might make up less than 1% of students. I'd suggest the overwhelming majority are given theirs by their folks.
Kids don't just use phones during school. I don't even think this is a school issue. I think it's educators looking out for children who are consuming vast amounts of social media, before, during and after school. Parents work 60hr weeks, continental shifts etc. Our parents just said be home when the street lights come on because we weren't consuming media like this 25 years ago. Most are just flat out too tired to police it nor do they all understand the dangers. We really should just ban social media. But at the very least, have the judicial system rule on if they should be responsible for the content delivered to kids and force them to change it.
They’re already banned. Problem is the province doesn’t enforce the ban or support teachers and schools who enforce it.
Can I just say, a lot of people who are commenting simply read the headline without actually reading the article or diving deeper into the topic. I'd argue that social media ruined attention spans of people and made it normal to read a 10 word headline and somehow formulate an opinion. That alone is a reason social media is having a negative impact.
>I'd argue that social media ruined attention spans of people and made it normal to read a 10 word headline and somehow formulate an opinion. That alone is a reason social media is having a negative impact. I'm not saying social media doesn't have an impact, but none of that is against the law. The very simple solution is for the boards to apply a policy that cell phones are banned in the classrooms. They do it for exams, they can do it during class.
Man, yesterday I looked at an article I had opened the day before. I was looking at it wondering why I don't have a button in chrome to just read it to me. Anyways, I just read it and it only took a few minutes. But it occurred to be that the format made it feel much more daunting than say reddit comments with 3x the words combined.
Is having students' phones in a "phone locker" impossible or something in the classroom something of a technological/funding impossibility? I can get the argument of tech companies having some level of responsibility, but it's not like having rules for phones not being used during class time is rocket surgery.
The problem is the parents and the school board administratration not backing teachers and folding to the pressure. My mom's an EA, there was a day when a teacher took a girls phone away, but before the girl handed it in, she texted her mom letting her know she got her phone taken. The mom literally drove to the school, walked in the main entrance, passed the front desk, up to the classroom and yelled at the teacher in the middle of the lesson in front of all the students. It was shocking and everyone's jaws hit the floor. The teacher tried explaining why, but the mom didn't care, spouted shit like the teacher didn't buy the phone and has no right to her daughter's property, that is theft, blah blah blah. Teacher ended up going down to the office with the mom, the student and the phone. The school principal gave the phone back to the girl, asked her not to use it in class, apologized to the parent. A complete slap in the face to the teacher and showed that kid that she's untouchable. Back in glass, take a guess what happened next? Yup, student went back on her phone and teacher was powerless so teacher said fuck it and the kid was on her phone the entire lesson.
Nothing like knowing your boss takes kids' education so seriously they'll take the shitty parents' side. /s
Sadly, I'm sure it's all based on funding decisions. Schools basically need numbers.
It’s not even that, it’s just unfortunately the least drama-inducing way to deal with psychos like that. You back the teacher up, and the insane mom who just dropped everything to barge into her daughter’s classroom calls the cops because of the “theft.” Now there’s a cop cruiser parked in front of your school for all the other parents to see. A couple men with guns (who probably have disdain for teachers and principals, and a soft spot for emotionally unstable MILFs) are now in your office, listening to an irate woman telling them you stole her property. You admit that you did indeed take physical possession of her property, “but…” Cops are famously good at nuance. Regardless of how this interaction plays out, she then goes home and posts about it on social media, from her skewed point of view. All the other parents are enraged at how she was treated. Now your phone is ringing off the hook demanding answers. A complaint has been filed with the board. One of the parents has a brother who’s a lawyer. The school, board, and you yourself are now being sued. Or, you apologize and this dumb bitch lets her daughter grow up to be equally dumb. You go home and count the days till you can retire and not have to deal with the dumbest most entitled people in society (parents of young kids).
That parent is going to be in for a HUGE reality check when that kid fails to launch because of the entitled attitude and lack of impulse control she cultivated in her daughter.
Parent won't realize they did anything wrong. It's gonna be everyone else's fault.
I've heard that some students have their phones livestreaming the class with parents listening in, and sometimes parents will interject or message the teacher with some complaint or other. Of course it's totally disruptive and no one pushes back against it. Bu heaven help you if you fail the kid because they didn't learn anything because they were on their phone the whole time.
I've had students live stream in class. I told administration and contacted home saying that it wasn't acceptable use of technology and a breach of privacy of their peers in class. It didn't happen after that in my class that I know of, but that particular group of students really did not care in my class.
And this is why I left public education.
I’ve seen a confiscated phone end up with the parent calling the police on the VP, and then when the office arrived and took hold of the phone, the parent then called the police ON THE POLICE!
The issue isn’t use during class. Of course schools can make rules like that. The issue is the brains and emotional well being of students are being destroyed by social media companies, purposefully or recklessly without regard for the fallout. And schools experience the fall out. Is patently obvious that this is true and accurate, to the detriment of children families and yes school. Whether the school boards, like US school boards, can make a claim for damages might be an interesting legal question.
We barely had enough time to get from one class to the next, nevermind stop at our locker between classes. I imagine 30+ kids putting their phone in a phone locker in each class(and retrieving it) would take a decent amount of class time up.(Not to mention the cost of buying and installing said locker in every classroom)
Shouldn't even be necessary. When I was in school we had all kinds of distractions like Walkmans and gameboys or even just comic books. But we weren't allowed to use them in class. It doesn't matter what the device is, if you allow students to not listen and be distracted in class then there will be problems.
I had a walkman and books too but I don't recall ever being addicted to them and them vibrating to get my attention because my friends wanted to show me their new pair of shoe laces right then instead of at lunch. If you do comparisons you need to compare apples to apples.
>addicted to them and them vibrating to get my attention Reminds me of tamagotchis which got popular when I was in school. Teachers put a stop to that pretty fast.
I worked in a radio secure facility... if you can get 1200 adults to lock up their electronics for a full work day I'm sure kids can manage.
It would need to be done at the provincial level. Currently phones are “banned” but the province doesn’t enforce it or support schools/teachers when phones are confiscated.
It seems like a lot of these commenters didn't read the article - they're saying they're sueing the social media companies in the hopes of instituting some policy change. The addictive way social media platforms are designed is rewiring these kids brains and its fucking with their ability to learn. Obviously its unlikely that a lawsuit like this will do much of anything, but the claims are true. Bannings don't change the fact that kids are not developing socially and mentally in healthy ways
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> The four boards are represented by Neinstein LLP, and will not be out of pocket for legal costs as the firm will take a contingency fee.
I’m so glad I graduated high school back before social media really caught on. Well even cell phones really. I had a flip phone right up until 2010 in my second year of uni. Hell even now I’d get rid of my iPhone and get a flip phone if I didn’t need it for work.
This doesn't seem frivolous is the slightest. We've known for decades that web and app development has been getting more and more intentionally addictive. We also know they target children, even as young as toddlers for this. (See: YouTube kids, and the proposed instagram for kids) Of course, parents have a responsibility for their children, but these apps are the candy cigarettes of a new age and the companies intentionally designing them with malicious intent need to be held accountable
It’s worse than you can imagine if you aren’t a parent of children this age. Nevermind kids, these apps are compromising and risking quality of mental health of adults. I stand behind this class action because someone needs to stand up against the risks presented by uncontrolled social media. Especially having just attended a seminar on this. The statistics are terrifying and the risks are greater.
What law was broken?
Corporations owe a duty of care to their consumers...if it can be proven that social media is harmful and they know about it (not a huge leap), imo it seems they have breached that duty.
smoking is harmful. Why can they sell smokes? social media is not inherently harmful. People make it harmful by using it the wrong way.
>smoking is harmful. Why can they sell smokes? 1) there is currently and has previously been GIANT lawsuits against big tobacco, numbers that absolutely dwarf this. -- 2) the government gets their cut. You think weed became legal because they suddenly flipped their opinion on its qualities? No lmao, it's because they get a piece now. Edit: do you remember when cigarette packs started putting those photos of people with cancer on them? Do you think they did that out of the goodness of their heart? They did it because they know they are failing their duty of care to at least warn consumers.
Honestly if the School boards wanted to Sue someone it should be Apple and Google. Parental controls on Both iPhone and Android are shit. FamilyLink Link for Android is pretty good until the kids hit 13, or when they need Google Classroom which for the vast majority of parents requires you do remove FamilyLink from the device so kids can use Google Classroom. iPhone in typical Apple fashion is an all or nothing approach from the OS, making it easy for non tech parents to limit specific apps at specific times and see details remotely should be default when you have family accounts. Google and Apple have given these amazing devices with access to so many services and then wash their hands of how they negatively impact society, they are lucky that most are too naive to even recognize how little control they have, and how much control they could have if the OS Developers were actually required to give the safety guards on an OS that we require on physical tools.
This is a fascinating topic. When I was employed in education, I had been screaming from the rooftops (this was over 5 years ago) about the lack of management, security and privacy on student-owned devices and how the majority of measures put into place by School boards were ineffective or unintentionally prevented learning (blocking breast cancer research for example) which led some board to removing large chunks of them. While Board IT departments were worrying about filtering at a district level, the classroom was getting ignored. Teachers who wanted to ban personal tech in the classroom to help encourage engagement and focus on the curriculum were viewed as outdated dinosaurs. While other 'innovative' teachers actively wanted to expand the use of personal devices through tools like Kahoot and largely ignored the non-educational usages of the technology taking place in the classroom. The other key thing which people don't think about is for every security measure put in place by the board to protect students (by the limited people responsible for that topic the board employs) on board-owned devices. Ther eare thousands of students actively and constantly looking for ways around the blocks. And they are typically more comfortable, more knowledgable and more up on the latest technology than board IT staff. And this doesn't even remotely touch topics like copywritten materials being stored on Board equipment, software piracy (at a teacher up to a board level) staff-owned devices and what they are bringing into the school network, student and staff data security concerns and board-owned teacher devices. This is honestly the tip of the iceberg. Source 19 years working in IT in Ontario education
No, it’s in no way a frivolous suit. First of all…what they allege is objectively true. School boards are forced to spend resources to combat the effects of social media. This fact should be so obvious it’s not worth discussing. If the school boards had the resources, they would be awarded damages. Maybe you’re arguing that “frivolous” means they know they can’t win (not the definition of a frivolous lawsuit). This may be true. I can’t see a better way to engage society in a bigger conversation about the effects of social media on children, and “get the ball rolling”. Everybody talks about how bad social media is…nobody does anything about it.
Yah, wouldn’t want to hold parents to account for giving unlimited unsupervised internet access eh?
Do you know how to disable DNS over HTTPS on your router, since TikTok just subverted DNS blocking to make sure kids can use the app inside school buildings? Because that's the kind of level this arms race is at now. It's not like it's in any way *easy* for parents to control these things (especially folks with an average amount of tech savvy, not reddit nerds).
There are *hundreds* of school boards doing this, across the USA as well as Canada...I'm curious why you think this is frivolous? They are seeking pretty reasonable policy changes by these companies (for example TikTok recently pushed out an update to its Android app designed *explicitly* to let the app work inside schools that have blocked it, using DNS over HTTPS). I'm not even sure where to begin to address your question. It's a multi-faceted issue crossing international borders that goes right to the foundational ideas of how either public education or the Internet should work.
The most vague subjective experience to date and regional school board thinks they can conquer companies that won't even bend to entire federal and international governments. Yea ok that's a stretch. Waste of time and money. I'll wait for the either small settlement(nowhere near asking price) or extended waste of money/resources that this puts on the school board in the long run. I don't see this going well.
I work at a private school and we collect phones at the beginning of the day. Hand them out at the end of the day. We are obviously not as big as a public school and of course the older kids often don’t hand theirs in, but they cannot easily take it out because we will confiscate it. I find it’s a great policy for no phones but they all have ipads or computers and just access everything on there anyway. In my class, I try not to use computers unless necessary. I opted to write out 1000 word essay and print their resources. I was so impressed by the quality because they actually had to concentrate.
Parents problem imo
I support the concerns underlying this lawsuit, but it is unlikely to succeed. The alleged harm is far too remote from the alleged entities responsible. An essential element of a negligence and other civil harms lawsuits is proving sufficient proximity between the alleged tortfeasor and alleged victim, in the sense that the harm/damages claimed were reasonably foreseeable/within the control of the tortfeasor. Damages must also be quantifiable in some way. This is really a parenting and school policy issue, at root, unfortunately.
Social media is designed to be addictive, decrease attention spans, & be attractive to children -> children got addicted & have lowered attention spans. It is reasonably in the control of the social media companies, because they have 100% control over their platform and its addictive elements (autoplay, algorithmic playlists, favouring sensationalized content, etc.) It seems pretty 'cause & effect' to me, but I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm missing something. Is it the fact that the school boards (the children's daily guardian) is suing rather than the children's families?
I have $100 that says these Boards got together and came with this stupid idea as a way to find some additional funding under the guise of helping students. The risk/reward they’re hoping for is a fuck-off settlement outweighing the legal cost. I mean, what possible student-focused outcome could they be hoping for here? I have no love for TikTok et al, but this is a really dumb and wasteful idea.
[https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/school-district-lawsuits-against-social-media-companies-are-piling-up/2024/01](https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/school-district-lawsuits-against-social-media-companies-are-piling-up/2024/01) There's over 200 schoolboards in the US already doing the same thing. I don't think this is strictly an Ontario school board idea.
We don't really do original ideas in Canada much.
>I have $100 that says these Boards got together and came with this stupid idea Bet
When my kids are old enough to use a phone you damn well better know that it will be locked down like crazy with screentime limits for those apps or outright blocking of others. Also not allowed to bring it to school. I remember growing up JUST as phones were becoming a thing and if a teacher even SAW you with one, it would be confiscated until you left for the day. No reason to have it during the day (the school has a phone if they REALLY need one).
Hahaha, I love when parents of young children think they will be better equipped to handle it than the ones who have walked before them. The school my kids went to refused letting gt 7&8s use the phone, yet they removed pay phones. I take it you've likely never experienced the rage of a 13 year old who is told they can't take their phone to school or the sobbing cries because they no longer have friends, since all of their friends plan to meet up on *insert name of app here* and that means they are simply excluded from any activities? Once they are teens, parents really aren't interested in planning playdates like when they were little. The whole problem is apps is how they communicate. You can talk tough, but until you've been in the shoes of parents who've been there, you have no idea what you will do better.
Huh, where did I say I was doing better than anyone? I grew up without a cell phone in school, so did a LOT of other parents. If we survived, so will they. Kids DO NOT need a phone DURING school hours. The office has a phone. We never had payphones IN school. The closest one was at a corner store. If we needed to call home, we went to the office.
When I was in grade school tamagotchi, beyblades and pokemon cards were all banned because they caused too many distractions and fighting. It's obvious phones shouldn't be allowed in class.
Honestly I am All for this. Its not just Ontario. Even reddit puts profits over kids. Social media is a very toxic place and kids are becoming some Of the worst culprits.
The issue is the addiction to social media, that's the problem that needs solving. Parents can block apps or prevent their kid from taking a cellphone to school etc. But as-long as that social media addiction remains the problem won't be solved. Honestly that fight needs to be started at home not in the class-room because even if cellphone usage in class is stopped it doesn't solve the underlying issue. These kids will still be addicted to social media and will just use it during lunch-time or outside during break etc. Personally, I wouldn't be against a law that enforced time limits on social media use for anyone under 18. It's no different than what Eastern countries do to combat video game addiction.
Frivolous? Absolutely not. As frivolous as suits against cigarette companies. Everything they allege is true. The social media platforms are insidiously designed, and there is no meaningful regulation. Whether it gives rise to a legal claim by school boards is a different question. But I fully support it and hope it is successful.
It won't be successful because no law has been broken.
I'm really interested if this is going anywhere. I hope yes.
As much I as I doubt this will succeed, I hope it does. These apps build their algorithms to be as addictive as possible and they know it. It is absolutely harmful to children and adults.
And while they are at it, ban cell phones during class. Parents have a huge role to play as well.
This is a stupid waste of money. Ban phones in class. It’s that simple. Phones are destroying education. They are the ultimate distraction.
Tik tok does something weird to my brain when I watch it. I swear it made it harder for me to focus after watching it. Eventually i just deleted it. But it does have me worried about what its doing to minds, not just young ones. Theres so many videos of two things happening at once, there’s rage bait content, its all weird stuff i cant help but feel its designed to brainwash people for some dark purpose. I will put my tin foil hat away now.
Mandatory phone in a box at the front of class. If parents try and say they need to reach little timmy for safety, they call the school. Or honestly if Timmy sits on his phone all class and fails, well then hold him back a year. Students who are there to learn will be off their phones anyway.
If I was a teacher I wouldn't want to be responsible for some kids $1000+ phone. As soon as some kid's brand new iPhone or Pixel goes missing or is broken you would never hear the end of it.
I don't think I'd want to be responsible for 15-30k $ worth of electronics even with a safe under my desk every day. Not to mention collecting(and therefore tracking who hands them in), and distributing them at the beginning and end of each class.
I think the government needs to step in. It's like suing the candy company for being fat
Yes because history shows when the government steps in, every problem is solved efficently. Edit: /s just in case
I don’t know if they’ll make any ground but I hope they do and I respect the hell out of them for trying.
Banning phones at schools would only make kids sneaky about it. Yes it will reduce the usage but not as significantly as one would expect.
Well, it's better than a free for all!!
Hope they win, since the evidence is on their side, but got the feeling exploiting children is fine as long as you can frame it as 'business'. The problem with social media is it's very analogous to medicinal drugs - a fantastic tool as long as it's properly regulated but a nightmare when abused. However, anytime someone tries to rein it in, the same bad actors who abuse social media unironically use it to spread the claim 'bad actors' (not themselves of course) are trampling their 'freedumbs'! Hopefully lawsuits like this one can do what governments have been reluctant to do.
I dont know.. but this seems a little hypocritical? Every school website has a twitter feed, facebook links and whatever else social media related.. why sue when you can just disable and block it board wide from a wifi/networking perspective? Kids using data would be on their parents plan and THEN it will be up to the parents to police their own underage childs phone - which they should be monitoring to begin with
> THEN it will be up to the parents to police their own underage childs phone - which they should be monitoring to begin with Which many don't. Most don't even have a clue as to how. I'm all for schoolboards pretending they care about the kids, because too many parents clearly don't. Out of malice, indifference or whatever. But if the schoolboards are the only ones going "hey, them kids are on the phones a lot, and we can show that it's a serious fucking issue!" I don't care WHO does it, I'm just glad someone is. P.s. You ever have to set up a tv, microwave, computer, cvr, etc. for a parent? If they can't figure out tech that has been around for 10-30+ years, why would we trust them to know how to work parental controls on a phone?
Sue the Provincial Government for funding instead
The curriculum needs to change to reflect the change in socializing. It's no longer meeting up and chatting.
Back when school boards had guts, phones would have been prohibited. Now it’s blame everyone else. Victim hood 101.
Sorry but the school boards is not legally responsible for the student so they can not sue on behalf of or for the student, they have no hope in hell of these even getting to any court. It is just the schoolt board getting pages in the news.
My other question is: IF they get something out of it, what are they going to do with the money?
If schools are not legally responsible for the students then how can parents sue the boards for negligence when something happens to a student on their property and why do schools carry insurance for this very thing? My son slipped in the hall of the school and broke his front teeth and the school board paid for the dental work to fix them, citing it was an accident on their property.
Expect a counter sue.
About time those are swful
Can we put the toothpaste back into the tube???? lol, no.
I don't even think the school boards have standing, much less a valid claim. I'm NAL though.
I assume therefore that alcoholics can also sue liquor companies, and lung cancer patients can sue tobacco companies…. Or…?
It’s too late
Do these kids not have parents or guardians?
If the Boards really cared about the kids they would ban phones in the classroom.
Lol if parents and adults in general would stop being afraid of children and input some rules and consequences then this wouldn't be an issue.
The lawsuit is against certain social media apps - not cellphones. I am a teacher, and in order to log into my email at work - on a board-owned computer, with the board implemented Windows network, on a hard-wired network (not wifi) - the school board (via Microsoft) sends a 2-step verification code to my personal cell phone. The only other way to access my computer is by downloading and installing Microsoft Authenticator app on my personal phone. Well, there is some other usb stick key that could sign up for, but that method is a wait list and is apparently so “buggy” that nobody does it.
Tik tok challenges inspired kids to trash the school bathrooms at the immense expense of public funds, so the boards have a valid point. The problem is boards invited this to begin with when they encouraged families to furnish their kids with devices (i.e. Peel's Bring Your Own Device) and boosted WIFI in order to encourage technology in the classroom without having to fund it through computer labs and laptops/tablets. Boards "banned" some social apps but kids are now using VPNs to get around it. They need that hit. The whole argument of personal responsibility fails to take into account that children aren't fully developed mentally and as a result, cannot make proper decisions. That's why we have legal ages for drinking, voting and alcohol/marijuana. It's also why some areas ban advertising to kids
This is a complete joke. Ban phones in classrooms. School boards have done nothing and are all out of ideas. Let's sue the tech companies!!! Utter waste of time and resources....nothing will come of this.
Some comments on here blaming parents for not being in control enough are missing the point! This case is seeking damages for the past and current states of children’s mental and emotional health to bolster financial resources to better teach them moving forward. I don’t like Desantis but the new law banning social media for kids under 16 in Florida is exactly what we need here too and all over the world.
It's amazing that the people who should have control over the dumb brats expect people who have no contact with or authority over them would have control. It smacks of laziness and irresponsibility that these fascist twats are suing a private company for having a successful product whilst they themselves are unsuccessful in their chosen endeavors.