Trinity Grammar will next year become the first all-boys school in Sydney to introduce a strict smartphone prohibition for kindergarten to year 8 students outside of class.
It is the latest in a string of private schools to help parents restrict their child’s access to technology amid growing fears for adolescent mental health, attention span and brain development.
Trinity said smartphone use damages working memory, reduces fluid reasoning and is fuelling a rising tide of youth anxiety.
Under the new policy, the tech will be prohibited for students below year 9 while they are on campus or participating in school activities.
Students will be permitted to carry a basic, non-internet-connected phone with talk and text functionalities while travelling to and from school.
The crackdown comes as parents are increasingly sounding the alarm about the damaging effects of social media and excessive screen use. The federal government’s social media ban for under-16s could be considered a failure, with most children still using it at the same frequency as they did before it was introduced in December.
The NSW government has moved to cap screen time use in schools to as little as 15 minutes per day from next year.
Trinity joins other schools setting rules beyond the school day, including Frensham in the Southern Highlands, The Armidale School in northern NSW and Pymble Ladies College. Hale School in Western Australia and Eton in the UK have also moved to restrict smartphones.
Other schools are taking different approaches to combatting the pervasive invasion of technology into students’ lives, including at St Aloysius, which has banned year 7 students from using computers between 8am and 3.10pm, except for in-class educational purposes.
“The purpose of this change in technology use is to help year 7 manage their screen time and encourages them to utilise the plaza and Bradfield to socialise and be physically active during breaks in lessons,” the email from St Aloysius staff member Mitchell Criss said.
“This will hopefully have a positive impact on the cohort socially,” he added.
In Sydney’s northwest, another independent Catholic school, Oakhill College, has also discussed the pitfalls of social media this year.
“The devil at present is reincarnated in social media on the internet,” a note from the school’s Brother Pat in a June newsletter said.
“Time for us all to examine how we use social media and counteract the devil’s presence in this part of our world.”
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare told Channel Seven’s Sunrise program this week: “I reckon most mums and dads know the impact that screens are having on their kids at home, turning them into little zombies, frying attention spans.”
It has been two years since parents at Mosman school Queenwood banded together, along with the junior school headmistress Anni Sandwell, to delay buying their children smartphones, under a plan called Queenwood Unplugged .
Parent Dr Rachel Holbrook said the smartphone ban has been a success in the primary school.
“There are only a few students who have smartphones and they hand them in when they get to school,” she said.
But that success has not been replicated in the senior years. “With the senior school, it has been hard as the responsibility lies with the parents,” she said.
Amy Friedlander, co-founder of Wait Mate, an organisation which helps parents connect to others who want to delay giving their child a smartphone, said most parents intuitively knew the negative consequences of children using smartphones.
“But we’re stuck in a situation where it feels like a social norm, and for many children a smartphone is the next step in their maturity journey,” she said.
She noted Trinity’s junior school had a strong cohort of parents who had made a Wait Mate commitment while the role of schools was changing.
“A couple of years ago, schools were unsure about their role, they saw smartphones as a parent decision,” she said.
But she noted numerous issues schools were dealing with—spanning bullying to student mental health and reduced sleep and attention—could be tracked back to smartphones.
“Schools are dealing with these headaches,” she said.
“It’s not just that smartphones can potentially be harmful with the content they expose kids to and their addictive design, it is that they take up a lot of space and present a significant opportunity cost to other experiences,” she said.
It is more than two years since Pymble Ladies College introduced its “Wise Phone” initiative, which issued students with a phone with limited functionality depending on the student’s age.
Principal Dr Kate Hadwen said students on the program reporting better quality sleep, wasting less time on screens and spending more time with family and friends.
“We have evolved the program by making it possible for students to have the Wise Phone system on any device they choose,” she said.
She said it worked best when “parents hold the line” and commit to the program.
“And we think that speaks to a bigger point,” she said.
“If we are going to make a real change in what our children access online, we need parents, schools, tech companies and governments all working together and playing their part.”
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