mobile phone bans – Techdirt (original) (raw)

ChatGPT Dreams Up Fake Studies, Alaska Cites Them To Support School Phone Ban

from the who-needs-reality-any-more? dept

Sometimes I love a good “mashup” story hitting on two of the different themes we cover here at Techdirt. This one is especially good: Alaska legislators relying on fake stats generated by an AI system to justify banning phones in schools, courtesy of the Alaska Beacon. It’s a mashup of the various stories about mobile phone bans in schools (which have been shown not to be effective) and people who should know better using ChatGPT as if it was trustworthy for research.

The state’s top education official relied on generative artificial intelligence to draft a proposed policy on cellphone use in Alaska schools, which resulted in a state document citing supposed academic studies that don’t exist.

The document did not disclose that AI had been used in its conception. At least some of that AI-generated false information ended up in front of state Board of Education and Early Development members.

Oops.

Alaska’s Education Commissioner Deena Bishop tried to talk her way out of the story. She claimed that she had just used AI to help her “create the citations” for a “first draft” but that “she realized her error before the meeting and sent correct citations to board members.”

Except, that apparently is as accurate as the AI’s hallucinations. Are we sure Deena Bishop isn’t just three ChatGPTs in a trench coat?

However, mistaken references and other vestiges of what’s known as “AI hallucination” exist in the corrected document later distributed by the department and which Bishop said was voted on by the board.

The resolution directs DEED to craft a model policy for cellphone restrictions. The resolution published on the state’s website cited supposed scholarly articles that cannot be found at the web addresses listed and whose titles did not show up in broader online searches.

Four of the document’s six citations appear to be studies published in scientific journals, but were false. The journals the state cited do exist, but the titles the department referenced are not printed in the issues listed. Instead, work on different subjects is posted on the listed links.

Cool cool. Passing laws based on totally made up studies created by generative AI.

What could possibly go wrong?

And, really, this stuff matters a lot. We’ve had multiple discussions on how lawmakers seem completely drawn to junk science to push through ridiculous anti-tech bills “for the children.” Here they’re skipping over even relying on junk science to go with non-existent made up science.

It’s difficult to see how you get good policy when it’s based on something dreamed up by an AI system.

Alaska officials pathetically tried to say this was no big deal and that these were “placeholder” citations:

After the Alaska Beacon asked the department to produce the false studies, officials updated the online document. When asked if the department used AI, spokesperson Bryan Zadalis said the citations were simply there as filler until correct information would be inserted.

“Many of the sources listed were placeholders during the drafting process used while final sources were critiqued, compared and under review. This is a process many of us have grown accustomed to working with,” he wrote in a Friday email.

Again, the version that had the hallucinated citations was distributed to the board and used as the basis for the vote.

Shouldn’t that matter?

For example, the department’s updated document still refers readers to a fictitious 2019 study in the American Psychological Association to support the resolution’s claim that “students in schools with cellphone restrictions showed lower levels of stress and higher levels of academic achievement.” The new citation leads to a study that looks at mental health rather than academic outcomes. Anecdotally, that study did not find a direct correlation between cellphone use and depression or loneliness.

Great. Great.

The Alaska Beacon article has a lot more details in it and is well worth a read. In the past, we’ve talked about concerns about people relying on AI too much, but that was more about things like figuring out prison sentences or whether or not someone should be hired.

Passing regulations based on totally AI-hallucinated studies is another thing entirely.

Filed Under: ai, alaska, citations, hallucinations, mobile phone bans, schools

Instead Of Fearing & Banning Tech, Why Aren’t We Teaching Kids How To Use It Properly?

from the luddism-isn't-helping dept

I recognize why some parents are worried about screen time and the use of technology in the classroom. But isn’t the better idea to teach kids how to use it properly, rather than banning it altogether?

Lately, there have been a bunch of stories about banning mobile phones in schools. Both California and New York have been pushing to make it mandatory. Lots of people are ignoring that (1) this has been tried and failed, including in New York before, and (2) researchers studying various places where it has been implemented have found that the bans aren’t very much useful.

This is not to say that phones belong in schools. There are plenty of reasons why schools or teachers might decide that phones need to be out of kids’ hands during class time. But blanket mandatory bans just seem like overkill and prone to problematic enforcement.

Even worse, the push to ban phones is already morphing into other kinds of technological bans. The Wall Street Journal is reporting on new efforts to ban other kinds of technology, including Chromebooks or other kinds of laptops.

Cellphone bans are taking effect in big districts across the country, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The next logical question, at least for some, is: What about the other screens? These concerned parents argue that the Covid-era shift that put Chromebooks and tablets in more students’ hands is fueling distraction more than learning.

I know that my kids use Chromebooks as part of their schooling, and they are pretty useful tools. Yes, there is a concern about kids spending too much time staring at screens, but the idea that banning these devices entirely in schools seems backwards.

Once kids graduate, they’re going to need to use computers or other devices in a very large number of jobs out there. We’re doing our kids an incredible disservice in thinking that the way to train them for the modern world is to ban the tools of the modern world from their instruction.

No one is saying to just let them go crazy on these devices, but, at the very least, it’s important to train them in the proper use of these modern technologies, which includes how and when to put them down and do something else.

Otherwise, we’re guaranteeing that kids will graduate and have to take jobs where they have to use computers and other devices where they simply haven’t been trained to use them properly. This means that all the things that parents now seem afraid will happen will instead happen on the job.

That doesn’t seem smart.

All of this is beginning to feel quite like the freak-out parents had about calculators four decades ago. Teaching kids how to use modern technology well should be a job for schools and educators. It seems like a real disservice to kids and their future for politicians and parents to step in and try to stick everyone’s head in the sand and make sure that no kids are prepared for the modern world.

The article is full of parents opting their kids out of any technologies, which again seems unlikely to be healthy for those kids either. It notes that schools are struggling with parents demanding that all technology be taken out of class, noting that plenty of teaching tools today involve technology.

As it should.

Avoiding technology entirely for kids until they graduate seems like a recipe for disaster. They’re going to be dropped into a world where technology is a necessity, and they will not have any sense of how to use it, let alone use it properly.

There’s a way for schools to teach kids how to properly use technology, and it isn’t by telling them it is bad and must be banned.

Filed Under: chromebooks, education, mobile phone bans, mobile phones, schools, technology

We Looked At All The Recent Evidence On Mobile Phone Bans In Schools – This Is What We Found

from the looking-at-the-actual-data dept

Mobile phones are currently banned in all Australian state schools and many Catholic and independent schools around the country. This is part of a global trend over more than a decade to restrict phone use in schools.

Australian governments say banning mobile phones will reduce distractions in class, allow students to focus on learning, improve student wellbeing and reduce cyberbullying.

But previous research has shown there is little evidence on whether the bans actually achieve these aims.

Many places that restricted phones in schools before Australia did have now reversed their decisions. For example, several school districts in Canada implemented outright bans then revoked them as they were too hard to maintain. They now allow teachers to make decisions that suit their own classrooms.

A ban was similarly revoked in New York City, partly because bans made it harder for parents to stay in contact with their children.

What does recent research say about phone bans in schools?

Our study

We conducted a “scoping review” of all published and unpublished global evidence for and against banning mobile phones in schools.

Our review, which is pending publication, aims to shed light on whether mobile phones in schools impact academic achievement (including paying attention and distraction), students’ mental health and wellbeing, and the incidence of cyberbullying.

A scoping review is done when researchers know there aren’t many studies on a particular topic. This means researchers cast a very inclusive net, to gather as much evidence as possible.

Our team screened 1,317 articles and reports as well as dissertations from masters and PhD students. We identified 22 studies that examined schools before and after phone bans. There was a mix of study types. Some looked at multiple schools and jurisdictions, some looked at a small number of schools, some collected quantitative data, others sought qualitative views.

In a sign of just how little research there is on this topic, 12 of the studies we identified were done by masters and doctoral students. This means they are not peer-reviewed but done by research students under supervision by an academic in the field.

But in a sign of how fresh this evidence is, almost half the studies we identified were published or completed since 2020.

The studies looked at schools in Bermuda, China, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Malawi, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. None of them looked at schools in Australia.

Academic achievement

Our research found four studies that identified a slight improvement in academic achievement when phones were banned in schools. However, two of these studies found this improvement only applied to disadvantaged or low-achieving students.

Some studies compared schools where there were partial bans against schools with complete bans. This is a problem because it confuses the issue.

But three studies found no differences in academic achievement, whether there were mobile phone bans or not. Two of these studies used very large samples. This masters thesis looked at 30% of all schools in Norway. Another study used a nationwide cohort in Sweden. This means we can be reasonably confident in these results.

Mental health and wellbeing

Two studies in our review, including this doctoral thesis, reported mobile phone bans had positive effects on students’ mental health. However, both studies used teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of students’ wellbeing (the students were not asked themselves).

Two other studies showed no differences in psychological wellbeing following mobile phone bans. However, three studies reported more harm to students’ mental health and wellbeing when they were subjected to phone bans.

The students reported they felt more anxious without being able to use their phone. This was especially evident in one doctoral thesis carried out when students were returning to school after the pandemic, having been very reliant on their devices during lockdown.

So the evidence for banning mobile phones for the mental health and wellbeing of student is inconclusive and based only on anecdotes or perceptions, rather than the recorded incidence of mental illness.

Bullying and cyberbullying

Four studies reported a small reduction in bullying in schools following phone bans, especially among older students. However, the studies did not specify whether or not they were talking about cyberbullying.

Teachers in two other studies, including this doctoral thesis, reported they believed having mobile phones in schools increased cyberbullying.

But two other studies showed the number of incidents of online victimisation and harassment was greater in schools with mobile phone bans compared with those without bans. The study didn’t collect data on whether the online harassment was happening inside or outside school hours.

The authors suggested this might be because students saw the phone bans as punitive, which made the school climate less egalitarian and less positive. Other research has linked a positive school climate with fewer incidents of bullying.

There is no research evidence that students do or don’t use other devices to bully each other if there are phone bans. But it is of course possible for students to use laptops, tablets, smartwatches or library computers to conduct cyberbullying.

Even if phone bans were effective, they would not address the bulk of school bullying. A 2019 Australian study found 99% of students who were cyberbullied were also bullied face-to-face.

What does this tell us?

Overall, our study suggests the evidence for banning mobile phones in schools is weak and inconclusive.

As Australian education academic Neil Selwyn argued in 2021, the impetus for mobile phone bans says more about MPs responding to community concerns rather than research evidence.

Politicians should leave this decision to individual schools, which have direct experience of the pros or cons of a ban in their particular community. For example, a community in remote Queensland could have different needs and priorities from a school in central Brisbane.

Mobile phones are an integral part of our lives. We need to be teaching children about appropriate use of phones, rather than simply banning them. This will help students learn how to use their phones safely and responsibly at school, at home and beyond.

Marilyn Campbell, Professor, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology and Elizabeth J Edwards, Associate Professor in Education, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Filed Under: cyberbullying, kids, mobile phone bans, mobile phones, schools, social media, studies