Editorial: A valuable new phone trial in Northern Ireland that gets pupils to seal their mobiles away during the school day

​Thirty years ago barely anyone in the UK had a mobile phone. ​Now the great majority of adults do, and so do most teenagers.

The range of things that can now be done on a so-called ‘smart phone’ is astonishing, from taking film of higher quality than colour television of 50 years ago to making instant video calls across the world to finding out the exact temperature at this moment in your nearest weather station.

They have revolutionised daily life in the western world, and are making similar advances into the third world too. As with all revolutionary technology, there are downsides too. Today we report on how how thousands of pupils in schools in Northern Ireland are involved in a government-run pilot scheme, which has pupils magnetically sealing their phones in special pouches at the start of every day.

The scheme will allow officials to check if stopping phone use in the classroom could improve concentration and wellbeing.

Phones are not only used in an inappropriate way by children, but also by adults. The desire to check your phone constantly because there is so much happening on it, for example in communications with family and friends and work, that it is very easy to be rude, and to seem to be more interested in your device than in the people with whom you are spending time socially.

There are old-fashioned members’ clubs and other social situations in which people are forbidden from using their phone, or discouraged from doing so. Such rules remind us of the need for periods of uninterrupted face-to-face time with people whom we value.

It is good if children are taught this at a young age. Looking at your phone is a temptation, perhaps to play a game, or to chat to others, or even to cheat in a test. Schools have always set rules for their pupils, and this phone scheme tests a new one.