“Mobile Phones serve as Beacons of Knowledge.”

“Rishi Sunak’s iPhone buzzes in his pocket. Acting exasperated, the Prime Minister retrieves his handset for a third time, before continuing on his monologue justifying a ban on smartphones in schools,” write Matthew Field and James Warrington for The Telegraph (28/04).

The Anxious Generation needs help. Tories and youth mental health advocates alike have latched onto Jonathan Haidt’s latest book that attributes the teen mental health crisis to endless scrolling and trapped in rabbit holes of depressing content.

Under No10’s Deputy Chief-of-Staff, Will Tanner, over the Easter break proposals to ban the sale of smartphones to under-16s in an effort to stop young children from accessing social media, with the support of movements like Smartphone Free Childhood. Among supporters is mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey. Esther Ghey has passionately advocated for controls that make it harder for teenagers to access harmful websites, and has spoken to Sunak and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan as part of her campaign to encourage students to learn mindfulness skills in school.

With the ready availability of explicit content or the harmful effects of an over-usage of social media, few would disagree that protections are needed. But, what would they look like, and how effective would they be?

CEO of the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), Sir Peter Wanless, wrote in The Times that blocking teens from the internet could lead to “increased secrecy”

Sir Peter Wanless, former chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, wrote in The Times that blocking teens from the internet could lead to “increased secrecy”. Andy Burrows from The Molly Rose Foundation, established by Ian Russell after his daughter Molly died after exposure to self-harm on social media, condemned the government’s proposals “bad and reactionary”.

Adam Hershkorn, a Year 12 student from Jewish Community Secondary School (JCOSS), offers his response to the proposed government policy.

“Phones liberate us from the chains of ignorance”

“Man is not truly one, but truly two; duplicity.” This is the message of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 19^th century publication Jekyll and Hyde. The novella toys with the idea of duality, which not only does this exists in the two eponymous characters, but also in other entities, such as setting.

In a generation that increasingly tends to care more for V-Bucks than tangible goods and prefers spending time in Tiled Towers than in the bookstore, the reason we as a society make children study literature in school – especially that from a bygone era – is hazier than ever. What do we get from studying Carol Anne Duffy that we don’t from watching KSI?

Literature is indelible. It survives the test of time. The concept of duality, for example, which features so prominently in Jekyll and Hyde; it is not redundant.

Take mobile phones: they can serve as beacons of knowledge, liberating us from the chains of ignorance. They can enlighten us through powerful tools such as search engines. Yet they can also corrupt, restrict us, tie us down and leave us addicted, craving just 5 more minutes scrolling into infinity, a thread that never ends. They can enslave us and disrupt our focus. 

Nowhere is this truer than in the classroom. Whilst smartphones can supplement learning through games like Duolingo and Kahoot, they can also disrupt focus and prevent concentration. 

This is why you may have heard the news that Rishi Sunak is taking action to ban phones in schools. Studies have shown Gen-Z to have shorter concentration spans than any other. Many are not accustomed to reading books, instead seeking instant gratification through short video clips.

Platforms such as Instagram, Tik Tok and X are in vogue, at the expense of long form content like novels and films. Sunak’s attack on phones in schools aims to rid students of these distractions in academic environments, rendering classes more focussed and more productive.

Yet in Stevenson’s novella, when Dr Jekyll tried to rid himself entirely of Mr Hyde, it only made him long to exploit his alter-ego even more. Literature teaches us that going ‘Cold Turkey’ doesn’t seem to work. Banning phones in schools will simply give rise to a generation that detests the establishment, dreaming all day of returning home to the beloved devices, where they can turn to figures like Andrew Tate to tell them about how much the political elite doesn’t give a damn about them. 

Sunak doesn’t seem to realise this. Has he not read Jekyll and Hyde? Perhaps he himself has been spending too much time on social media, and not enough time reading.

Introduction by Suchir Salhan. With thanks to Caius Schools and Miss Taylor (Head of Sixth Form, JCoSS).