At least 31 states and the District of Columbia restrict cell phones in schools
New York City teachers say the state’s recently implemented cell phone ban in schools has showed that numerous students no longer know how to tell time on an old-fashioned clock.
“That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all,” Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, told Gothamist of what she’s noticed after the ban, which went into effect in September.
Students in the city’s school system are meant to learn basic time-telling skills in the first and second grade, according to officials, though it appears children have fallen out of practice doing so in an increasingly digital world.
To give another data point for comparison, I am about as young a Millennials as one can be (I’m 29), and I don’t recall there being any issues in reading analog clocks in my cohort.
This is weirdly both surprising and not surprising to me. Not surprising because like I say, I am one of the last of the Millennials, and it does seem intuitive that this would be an issue that started with Gen Z. It’s surprising though, because 9 years seems like quite a small time window for such a change to have happened