Editorial: Mobile phones are a boon to learning yet can also be harmful to school pupils

​Thirty years ago almost no-one had a mobile phone in the UK. Now almost everyone does.​

The phone revolution does not just mean that people can make phone calls. It means that they can read newspapers on their phone, watch TV, make calculations, plan and be guided on journeys, read novels, take photographs, videos, edit them, publish to the internet, make video phone calls to friends and family around the world.

Even sceptics, for example older people who saw no need for such technology, have been won over. Smart phones can reduce loneliness, improve our knowledge, and enhance daily life.

Such phones, however, come with multiple downsides. People who look at their phone while eating a meal in the company of others, and who don’t realise that this is as impertinent as it once was to watch TV during a meal or read. Some traditional social environments, such as members’ clubs or top hotels or restaurants, rightly restrict phone usage in certain settings.

If adults cannot be relied upon to use their phone in a way that shows consideration to other people around them, who can be surprised if children are all the more lacking in good manners.

And manners are far from the only problems facing children from phones. They might be exposed to pornography or graphic violence at a young age. They might become addicted to games. They might be exposed to personal bullying that they alone can see. They might use a phone to cheat.

Schools, therefore, are an environment in which children should be taught how best to harness and savour technology, and how it can be a boon to learning. But also how to say no to it, and how to understand being told to say no to it, such as having to turn your phone off or hand it in for much of the school day. Also, how to learn and socialise with other people without always having their head buried in a screen.