How Alberta students are dodging the cell phone bans in schools

Canadian social media strategist Adam Rodricks talks about the ways kids are accessing social media and the risks for them.

Social media, whether you like it or not, is more accessible than it ever has been.

Schools in Alberta and Canada alike are restricting cell phone use in the classrooms, yet students are finding ways around the crackdown.

CTV Morning Live Edmonton’s Kent Morrison speaks with Canada’s top social media strategist Adam Rodricks about the issue.

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Kent Morrison: Canadian schools, and here in Alberta, have cracked down on cell phone use, but students are finding ways around that. What’s happening right now?

Adam Rodricks: We know our kids are resourceful, but when you take away their phones, you just see a whole new level of (how) inventive they can be. High schoolers were using loopholes like fake IDs or simply accessing adult devices when they were at home, but now we’re getting reports of a far more entrepreneurial way to circumvent the smartphone ban. Some kids have taken it upon themselves to rent out their phones between classes to classmates who maybe don’t have access to a phone so they can get a quick fix on their socials in a discreet way. So if you were a parent and you were worried about safeguarding your pass code, maybe take a look at where the lunch money is going instead.

Kent: That is fascinating. When adults are creating the rules in a landscape that kids are used to, you can see how they can find ways around. Now let’s talk about the risk, why this is so important to talk about. Excessive social media use in young kids, what can that do?

Rodricks: We know it’s already been linked to attention deficits, to increased anxiety and to just an overall lack of self control, but now some studies are even pointing to social media overuse leading to changes in their brain structure, lowering their overall empathy, and showing longer term effects that could hurt developing minds as well.

Kent: We’ve seen Australia take maybe the most decisive step, banning kids under 16 from accessing any social media. Do you think other countries like ours have the ability to follow that lead?

Rodricks: It’s certainly being asked more and more, but I think the question is really about whether we’re willing to take all of the other steps to make said ban effective. I mean, an outright ban fails to account for all of the nuances of how Canadians browse social media. It could also jeopardize some of our at-risk youth who rely on these platforms for the healthy relationships and the constructive conversations. So before we even get into whether a ban is going to be effective, I think we need to bring in the major social platforms themselves, see if they’ll bear some responsibility in helping us to incorporate barriers, because we need to limit the potentially harmful usage of some and not all.

Kent: Has there been any movement on that, though? Because so far, it seems like these major platforms (who are) in control of social media, they don’t seem all that willing to make any of these big time steps.

Rodricks: You’re absolutely right and I think the reason for that is because it’s really counterintuitive to the big social platforms goals – increased time spent on site, increased time spent on app – because where Canadians spend our time, we’re more likely to spend our money. So those big networks, they want us on there as much as possible, which is why any measures that we’re going to implement probably need to come from the Canadians ourselves.

Kent: Those are big, macro things with the business. What can people at home do to help their kids?

Rodricks: I say this as a parent – it’s about education. I don’t think that you’re going to stop the technological marketplace at the schools, but what you can do is talk to your kids about the dangers of social media use and start to talk to them about how they can safeguard themselves and be more critical to what they’re seeing online.

Kent: How can you make an impact when it is rather omnipresent and, like you said, their friend might sell them access to a cell phone at school?

Rodricks: It’s difficult, and it’s going to be an uphill battle. What’s (more) daunting for all of us, is that these social platforms change rapidly. So even if you have some level of monitoring, we know that some of them, like Snapchat, work on anonymity. That’s the lifeblood of Snapchat. So I don’t think that what we’re trying to do is increase monitoring, or essentially put the guardrails on. What we’re trying to do is educate the youth so they understand what is safe in terms of browsing online and what is not.

Kent: Kids are smart. Armed with the right information, it can go a long way. Adam, we appreciate the conversation and the insight this morning. Thanks for joining us.

To learn more about Adam Rodricks' work, head to his website.