[knaik94]

Banning smartphones is a very short sighted decision. Society is moving towards integrating more technology in everyday usage. Banning smartphones will promote technology illiteracy.

The average speed of the available internet has increased exponentially since 1998. On dialup and even dsl, a 480p video is a struggle if possible at all, but over covid it became mandatory for home internet to support 3+ simultaneous video calls every single day, with some 4k Netflix/Youtube streams during lunch or for background music. My sister actually had to do a video call demonstrating a golf swing from her phone for online gym class. In 1998 99% of consumer internet speeds were too slow to stream an audio file in high quality without buffering.

Many middle and high schools have started using fleets of Chromebook for things like google classroom, textbooks, and submitting daily homework. Using computers isn't a special event that requires a class visit the computer lab. Everyone has adapted to these new trends for communication. It's fine to feel nostalgic and appreciate certain benefits in how things were in the past, but it doesn't make sense to apply the standards of 1998 to today's classrooms.