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School Cellphone Ban Spawns Thriving Niche Storage Market
- jaems33 14y agoI experienced something similar near Yankee stadium. They don't allow men to bring bags into the stadium. But they don't have a bag storage service (at least the last time I went). So random businesses around it provide bag checks for a nominal fee. Funnily enough, they allow women to bring large bags and purses inside.
- petercooper 14y agoHats off to the entrepreneurship here but the reason it's needed in the first place is a farce. Schools should get a grip rather than be happy their students get to fork out $22+ per month to work around their silly restrictions.
- keithpeter 14y agoI understand what you are saying, but attention diversion is a problem with teenagers, I can tell you. They have grasshopper minds even without shiny rectangles.
- unimpressive 14y agoOn the one hand, I think cell phones are overrated, on the other, I'm mildly disgusted by the presence of metal detectors and bag checks, with confiscation involved if phones are detected.
- keithpeter 14y agoI suspect that the metal detectors may allow for the detection of knives, guns and so on as well as electronics, but I agree that turning your schools into places that feel like part of the criminal justice system may not be a good signal to send. A modern feature/smartish phone of the kind that a teenager can afford in the UK (usually a Blackberry because of the superb social network that RIM have accidentally built) could be really useful in the classroom. I've had students taking photos of solutions to examples in the class as a quick way of capturing information; I've had students using WolframAlpha to plot graphs/check the solution to equations; I've had specific students playing a youtube about a mathematics skill so they can see a different explanation. I provide PDF files scaled so each page is a flashcard when viewed on the typical small screen; just use A6 slide size and 24 point text. The problem is the attention disruption that occurs through the messaging. Maybe a class set of iPod touches running on a closed wifi?
- unimpressive 14y ago
- keithpeter 14y agoDoes anyone have references to the impact of banning electronics on school performance? There is a similar move in the UK. I like the retail shop storage idea; there is usually a newsagent/sweetshop somewhere near most large secondary schools.
- shabble 14y agoSeems like a really neat solution to an (in hindsight) obvious problem. Makes me think of the guy with a camper-van full of PCs dedicated to form filling parked near the Chinese consulate in New York: https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/04/144636898/a-man-a-van-a-surprising-business-plan https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/04/144636898/a-man-a... I think in the prior example, they actually complained about the publicity they were getting because it clued in competitors, without significantly benefiting them, because their market was going to walk past the truck anyway.
- Keverw 14y agoKids aren't even allow to bring phones to school and keep them hidden in pocket? wow... When I went to school you could use them at lunch. Is this starting to happen all over the US or just New York? I'm in Ohio, currently. In class you had to keep them in your pocket or purse and have the ringer off, else teacher would take it and hold it till the end of the day. Wow. Schools are starting to seem more and more like police states. I would like to see schools embrace small gadgets, instead of banning them, some how. I mean they do have lots of educational value if you want to use it for that.
- vsviridov 14y agoStill have doubts that schools in US are, essentially, jails?
- unimpressive 14y agoNo. Any ideas on how to fix it?
- spindritf 14y agoNot jails, storage facilities for kids, cell phone storage is an auxiliary service.
- javert 14y agoSchools that completely ban the possession of cell phones need to offer a way for students to store their phones during the day in the lobby of the school. They could just issue each student a tiny locker with a key. I have multiple reasons for saying this. One reason of lesser importance (but perhaps more interesting) is: who's to say these trucks aren't copying the flash drives off smartphones? I'm all for entrepreneurship but society has already decided that education is not up for a free market, so it's not worth haggling over tiny details like this.
- lotu 14y agoWho's to say the guy watching the phones for the school isn't copying the flash drives off the smartphones? And honestly why would they? I doubt the contents of a teen's cell phone are very interesting and doing so would endager their business which they take seriously enough to have a 2 million dollar insurance policy on.
- javert 14y agoAs I said, the security issue here is interesting to me as somewhat of a "hacker," but not really so important. However, there definitely are ways to exploit this. For example, the person holding the phones could search for nude pictures, or material in text messages that could be used to blackmail the children (possibly the same thing, not necessarily). I think having a bunch of "cell phone lockers" in a very public area of a public school would guard against that kind of thing pretty effectively. It would take a conspiracy of school employees to pull it off and really not be worth it.
- damncabbage 14y agoMaybe there's also a market for lead-lined phone baggies that students can stash in the bottom of schoolbags. (If schools are acting like the TSA...)
- gouranga 14y agothey should just turn the classrooms into faraday cages. Problem solved and no storage required. Back in my day we didn't have phones in class (they were too big and expensive). We still played up, did little work and achieved nothing :) If the teachers gave a toss and were engaging, it would be a different story.
- Kluny 14y agoWhy on earth don't the schools run this service themselves? Instead of confiscating the phones, hold onto them in the same way the third-party companies do. They're always complaining how they don't have enough money.