Last year, the Eby government announced that phones were no longer permitted in K-12 classrooms in British Columbia. Current provincial regulations require all 60 school districts to restrict the use of phones in schools.

However, as with many things in life, the devil is in the details. The new provincial policy doesn’t really ban phones; it merely states that school districts must restrict them. So while schools might, on paper, discourage the use of phones, the reality is often quite different.

For example, according to the family of a Grade 9 student at Chilliwack High School, their son recently had to download several apps and use Microsoft Teams for group work to complete his assignment, both inside and outside of regular class time. But the boy was the only student in his classes whose parents hadn’t already given him a phone. This put enormous social pressure on his parents. Clearly, this undermines the entire purpose of making classrooms phone-free zones.

Of course, there are many good reasons to ban phones from classrooms. For example, there’s overwhelming evidence that phones distract students from learning—even when left on silent mode. In fact, the mere presence of phones in the same room makes it harder for students to concentrate. Ideally, parents shouldn’t give students phones at all, at least not until they are near adulthood.

Unfortunately, many school districts in B.C. have lukewarm phone policies that merely state that the use of phones in class is left to the discretion of individual teachers. This puts teachers in an awkward position because teachers with strict classroom rules are pressured by students to follow the example of teachers with more flexible rules. Many teachers find it hard to resist this pressure, particularly if they are new to their jobs.

However, banning phones from classrooms is not enough. In far too many cases, school districts encourage students to bring other personal devices such as tablets and laptops to school under so-called 1:1 BYOD (bring your own device) programs. Not only does this pressure parents to buy the latest technological gadgets for their children, but it also makes classroom learning dependent on technology.

Some school districts purchase devices such as Chromebooks and loan them out to students. The expectation is that students will use these district-issued devices to complete their assignments. Unfortunately, students often use these devices to conduct inappropriate Internet searches and chat with their friends. No matter how many Internet filters school districts put in place, students invariably find ways around them.

So what’s the solution?

It’s time for B.C. school districts to recognize that schools have become too dependent on technology. Students don’t need fancy tablets to learn how to read, nor do they need Chromebooks to do basic math. As for written assignments, there’s nothing wrong with using old-fashioned pen and paper.

Pedagogically, there’s no need to make classrooms dependent on technology, especially for younger students. For example, there’s a huge difference between writing answers by hand in cursive and typing the same answers on a keyboard. Students are more likely to become strong readers and writers if they write by hand.

But even for older students there are good reasons to reduce dependence on technology. If we’re serious about cracking down on the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI), we should require students to write out more of their answers by hand during regular class time. Otherwise, we’re likely to see even more students using AI for their assignments. Making classrooms too dependent on technology is one of the surest ways to encourage students to cheat with AI.

Technology has many benefits in school, but it also has many drawbacks. B.C. school districts must do more to crack down on the excessive use of technology in classrooms. There’s more to learning than looking at a computer screen.

Michael Zwaagstra is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.