Ban Should Be a Last Resort
The following is the transcript of my closing editorial from episode 144 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about banning phones in schools, and I hate this whole conversation. First off, I hate it because there’s an underlying assumption that school is good and paying attention in school is a good thing, which is highly questionable. But mostly I hate it because of how everyone talks about kids as if they are NPC’s with no agency and no preferences that matter even the slightest bit. The conversation is all about how we stuff as much information into their heads as possible, and almost nobody even brings up the idea that the kids themselves might have opinions.
The other thing is that everyone jumps right from the premise that phones are distracting to the conclusion that they need to be banned. Which is crazy. Banning things ought to be a last resort, after you’ve tried everything else to deal with the harm. Bans are awful. They have serious costs. When you ban something, you are, by definition, denying people what they want and forcing them into a situation they didn’t choose. With adults, we intuitively understand that, which is why we don’t ban all bad things. Lying is legal in most situations. Cowardice is legal. Cheating on your wife is legal. Hate speech is legal. Moving to Kansas is legal!
Banning phones teaches a kid a number of lessons:
You are my enemy. I cannot trust you and I should do everything I can to undermine you
The way to get what you want is to amass power and use it to dominate your opponents
My preferences don’t matter to anyone in authority
I can’t be expected to control myself. I am weak and I need to be protected from my own choices
There’s also the issue that once you ban something, you have to enforce the ban, which necessarily requires a hyper-vigilant police state to be effective. Or else you enforce it inconsistently, and everyone learns that your rules are arbitrary and don’t need to be taken seriously.
Honestly? Banning phones in class might be worth it. They are distracting! They’re mostly incompatible with paying attention. If teachers were using class time well and teaching worthwhile skills, it would probably make sense to ban them. But I hate the whole conversation because I have yet to see anyone acknowledge any of the real downsides or even make any baby steps in the direction of viewing children as people.
If we’re going to be talking about this, let’s at least mention that bans come with a ton of side effects that we probably don’t want, and try to actually address that.