A Conversation with Screen Less Play more
Public Schools vs. Screens
About six months ago I wrote an article called, “My School Banned Phones for the Year. Here’s What Happened.”
The article ended up going viral with over 28k views and it caught the attention of Jonathan Haidt, author of the book, The Anxious Generation. He proceeded to post it over on his Substack, After Babel.
After that I was contacted by both MSNBC and Fox News to talk about the cell phone epidemic in schools. I had to politely turn down both opportunities to talk about the subject because the teachers union denied me permission to do so. I was told because my school had jumped the gun by banning cell phones a year early, our school was on shaky legal ground and they didn’t want me to call attention to the subject. I was tempted to ignore them, but at the end of the day I still like my job too much to risk losing it.
Fortunately I managed to find a silver lining when ScreenLess PlayMore contacted me with a podcast opportunity. The conversation posted above covers a number of topics related to screens in school, and plenty of funny anecdotes I have about the social media dopamine epidemic.
If you’re interested in learning more about the subject of kids and screens, I highly recommend you check out ScreenLess PlayMore’s website, as she has a number of wonderful resources concerning the topic.
Without further ado, please enjoy our conversation about what happens when a school bans cell phones.
Nice! Yeah, keep that job!