In schoolyards across Canberra, teenagers have their heads bowed watching TikTok videos, sending Snapchat messages and playing games.
When they go to class, teachers spend a good 10-15 minutes arguing with students to put their phones away.
When the battery bar dips into the red, a feeling of anxiety and dread creeps in. It's called nomophobia (the fear of not having a mobile phone).
The ACT is the only jurisdiction in Australia to not have a consistent policy to ban phones across all public schools. I've spoken to several parents about the issues and one message is gathering momentum: it's time for high school students to put their phones away during school hours.
The Education Directorate is about to embark on a round of consultation on this issue. Considering all education ministers made a commitment to tackling the distractions caused by mobile devices in government schools, this consultation should focus on how restrictions should be brought in, not whether there should be any restrictions.
Up until now, the directorate has left it up to each school to do its own consultation and devise its own policies. This has put the workload and pressure for the decision back on individual principals and school boards.
Parents have told me in high schools where phone use is "discouraged", nearly every student has their phone out on the playground during break time. But in the schools with a strict "no phones out" policy with actual consequences for breaking the rules, students are able to sever the invisible umbilical cord connecting them with their devices.
Most private schools in Canberra already have strict guidelines for phone use, and they're reaping the benefits. For example, Merici College brought in a strict policy that phones must be put in lockers throughout the school day, with some discretion allowed for year 11 and 12 students who use their phones for study purposes.
Harrison School followed this year by investing in Yondr pouches. Students use these pouches to lock their phones all day and the results were almost immediate.
The school has seen fewer distractions and fewer arguments with teachers about putting phones away at the beginning of lessons, parents say.
When I speak to academics about this issue, they invariably say phones are a fact of modern life and schools are short-sighted to ban them. Students will need to use them in their working lives, so they need to learn to self-regulate.
The problem is most adults realise how addictive phones and social media platforms are. The devices are designed to give that little dopamine hit each time you get a notification, like or reaction.
How is an underdeveloped adolescent brain able to make a rational decision on how much phone time is too much? How can they evaluate the impact it's having on their friendships if they haven't had a good chance to make real-life friends?
Having some time away from phones won't be detrimental to students' digital literacy skills. They have access to Chromebooks during the day and exceptions can be made for students with special needs.
Students can still get messages from their parents when they switch on their devices after school and they can still use phones at home.
Bringing in mobile phone restrictions in schools will merely bring the ACT into line with the other parts of the country and in line with what most parents expect and what teachers deserve.
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