Tyrone Kline

Should smartphones be banned in K-12 schools nationwide?

I am a junior, and the adults debating this clearly have not watched a ban fail in real time. My school tried one: teachers spent the first ten minutes of every period collecting phones instead of teaching, and the kids who wanted to cheat just brought a second phone. Meanwhile I use my phone for things the school cannot replace: a translation app for my mom at parent-teacher night, photos of the whiteboard because I process better visually, and the bus tracker that tells me if I missed my ride home. [Pew](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/12/11/teens-social-media-and-technology-2023/) reports nearly all teens have phone access, but access is not equal, and for some of us the phone is the only computer we own. Punish the misuse, sure. But a blanket ban treats every student like the worst one in the room.

if everyone had to vote politicians would actually have to talk to young people. imagine that

Politics · Oct 6, 2026 · Should voting be mandatory in the United States?

My art is in those training sets too, scraped without asking. Until there is a compensation system for the artists whose work taught these models, an Oscar for AI film is an award for laundering. Pay the training data, then we can talk about trophies.

Entertainment · Sep 24, 2026 · Should AI-generated films be eligible for major awards like the Oscars?