> My teacher would have ripped the gameboy out of my hand and confiscated it for the rest of the school year. Teachers do not that have that kind of freedom today.

Well, how are teachers supposed to enforce a ban on smartphones, then?

The school system and public institutions need to protect them and give them back this power.

If they get this power, why do we need the global ban, then?

Because it’s an exhausting waste of my time to police cell phones on an individual basis. Of course, a lot of the teachers in my building require students to put their phones in a basket or in a numbered slot when they come into the room so they don’t even have to deal with it. If you have it with you in the room rather than depositing it like you should the teacher will take it and log it into the office, which means mommy or daddy has to come get little Johnny’s phone on Tuesday or Thursday between 7 and 8 am.

> Also gameboy games were not anywhere near as addicting as games and social media are today.

Have you never played Tetris? Any Gameboy game where you have to level up (like Final Fantasy) will also be a severe temptation as you have something productive to do while the teacher yammers about stuff you either already know, has nothing to do with you (e.g. talking to another student), or don't care about (like really I do not care about the difference between "predicate nominative" and "subject complement").

Also the original Game Boy was a bit too big to bring into a class and not get caught, but Game Boy Advance SP was perfect.

Those games were so fun but there were less FOMO. FOMO is a part of a reason for social media addict.

No, my argument is that it doesn't take a smartphone to be distracted in class. And that electronic entertainment devices have been available for many decades.

None of this is new. Children being distracted in classrooms is nothing new. If there's children, there's socializing, playing games, and ignoring adults for the much more interesting other children.'

Cell phones are just the new boogyman, like CD players and walkmen and gameboys etc. were back in the day.

> Teachers do not that have that kind of freedom today.

No, but we can take the electronic device and log it into the office so that a parent has to come retrieve it. And if I happen to forget a couple of days and only manage to log it in on Friday so that they don’t get it over the weekend, well, I’m a forgetful chap.

That threat alone, not having a phone over the weekend eliminates 90% of phone issues in my classroom.