You can't enforce a ban on mobile phones in the classroom – we should teach kids to hate them instead | Van Badham

Ours is a desperate hour, we can try to learn to read phones, cynically and powerfully

The Australian state of Victoria has just banned mobile phones in the classroom. This is a noble intention, but a missed opportunity. Really, they should have smashed the machines, every one.

The logic of the state government's decision is faultless. Mobile phones distract children from classroom learning, and undermine teacher authority. They are poisonous crucibles for bullying, the means of image-based abuse, and a popular media for peer humiliation. Much is being learned about the affect of the palm-held contagion on human cognition - the erasure of skills in basic orientation and location awareness, their addictive appeal to dopamine in the teenage brain, their nasty impact on body confidence and sexual perception.