Anyone whose jaw is on the floor in horror at this post, be advised that it's not some hyper-connected techie outlier: this is absolutely the norm now. My wife

Anyone whose jaw is on the floor in horror at this post, be advised that it's not some hyper-connected techie outlier: this is absolutely the norm now. My wife teaches in a mixed lowish-to-upper-middle school district in (what I'm sure many of you will consider to be) backward-ass Kansas City. Most of the kids have a personal smartphone by 2nd or 3rd grade. All except a tiny minority with stricter parents have them by 5th or so—we're talking 1-2 a class without a personal smartphone, tops. The school abandoned efforts to keep phones out years ago, and I've been told that's how most are now. Taking a phone being used in class will just earn you a pissed-off self-righteous parent who may or may not turn out to be a nutter who tries to get you fired, so no-one even tries, and besides, school policies on phone use are weak—they've just surrendered, because almost no parents would back them up on any kind of anti-phone policy with teeth, and many would actively fight it. My wife's many times had to scold kids for texting their friggin' parents while lessons are going on.