It is absolutely insane to think that in only 27 years, technology that once took up an entire room has now gotten to the point where it can fit in your pocket. Not only that, but the technology is now so common that “Over 98% of Americans owned a cell phone in 2024,” according to Cell Phone Statistics 2025 by Alexus Bazen for Consumer Affairs.
We often take these wonderful little bricks for granted, but when you actually think about it, smartphones are not far off from actual magic. Think about it. You can talk to someone on the other side of the world as if they are standing right next to you, you can get the answer to any question you may have in an instant, you can have hours of entertainment, or hundreds of other things.
Not to mention the only thing you have to do to unlock this absurd power is plug it in for a few hours, or a few cents of electricity, and put in some sort of code. Some phones don’t even need a password; they’ll just scan your face or your fingerprint. Thanks to this great power at such a low cost and such a high popularity, many schools will ban their use during the school day to try to prevent students from cheating on their work.
Our school is no different, and they want to keep us from using phones in class. Our system, as I am sure you all know by now, is the phone caddies. These allow students to use phones throughout the school day but not in the middle of class. However, this is not the only solution to this problem. There are other ways to keep students in line when it comes to cell phones.
One such idea is a zero tolerance policy, as discussed by Mr. Klepac: “I know of districts that have absolute zero tolerance policies, where they’re not even allowed in the building with their phones, but in a lot of those cases, the schools have lockers, so in the event that a student does have their phone on their person, they’re asked to return them to their lockers or go to the office. Having zero tolerance policies, although it sounds scary, and it’s hard to do, I think if it were to be something we implemented over x amount of time, it’s possible that would be more effective.”
This may sound scary, as Mr. Klepac noted, but it is not as uncommon as you may think. “In 2020, government data found almost 80 percent of schools banned cell phones for nonacademic purposes,” according to Schools crack down on cell phones, sparking debate on safety and tech use by Lexi Lonas Cochran for The Hill.
By now, you may be thinking, “Well, just because a lot of schools have decided to implement this system doesn’t necessarily mean it’s helping. After all, great minds think alike, but fools rarely differ.” Those people may want to look at this quote from that very same article. “One study found that test scores increased by 6.4 percent after schools banned cell phones, and the effect was doubled for low-achieving students.”
Many students aren’t fans of the caddies, but I am not sure if it is because they are genuinely interested in keeping their phones away from them or if they just want to have their phones with them, and they are annoyed at this foil in their plans. Personally, I think that the school could do better.
We have the caddies, but multiple students are just ignoring them. In Ms. Hoose’s 4th hour, she had to stop using the caddy because students just ignored it, and there were no penalties. I don’t know if this has happened with any other classes, but in all of my classes, I’ve noticed a significant dip in the amount of students who will actually put their phones up vs. those who will either put up a fake phone, just the case, or they will just walk right past without even glancing at the phone caddy. This is a growing problem that the school needs to do something about before more classes are just like Ms. Hoose’s 4th hour.