the word in language is half someone else's

A friend asked me if I had Thoughts on cell phone bans in school. Unsurprisingly, I absolutely do, so I dusted off Dreamwidth to do an Opinion Yell.

My biggest hesitation on banning cell phones in school has to do with the notion that cell phones specifically are the problem. There's a lot of data suggesting that kids are more depressed and anxious these days than ever before; I have two major questions about that data:

1. How sure are we that this represents an actual rise in rates of depression and anxiety, and not just an increase in the % of kids who are willing to admit it? The conversation around mental health in schools has shifted dramatically even just since I started teaching, and I wonder how much of the increase in reported depression rates is an increase in reporting rather than an increase in actual depression.


2. How sure are we that cell phones, specifically, are to blame? Like...*gestures vaguely at the entire world* I think there are plenty of perfectly cromulent reasons to be depressed and anxious even without consulting the Torment Nexus we keep in our pockets. Correlation is not causation, my dudes.

To be clear, I don't know that cell phones aren't the problem! It's entirely possible that they are! But I don't think it's reasonable to dismiss those two considerations out of hand.


I probably have further thoughts—I usually do—but those are the ones that are topmost in my mind right now.