Ban cell phones!

Lately I see more and more news items (in NL) about the danger of digital media and technology in our lives lately. This week at Nu.nl (big NL news site) the following article caught my attention:

>> 'Verbied mobieltjes op school' (ban mobile phones at school)

The 3rd biggest political party in NL wants to forbid the handy's (I love that (German?) term for cell phone :) at highschools because huge numbers of kids would have porn on their mobiles. This is according to a well respected newspaper in NL (Het Parool), who has done it's research at a couple of high schools. A psychologyst warns us that kids that do not have any proper boundaries will use their phones to make sexual oriented movies and pictures of themselves and others. Already cases have been reported that kids create this type of homemade picture's and video's of classmates that are being shared amongst friends. As weird as it may sound, I don't think this very disturbing. Kids do shit like this all the time and it's called bullying. ok maybe a tad more confronting as it used to be, but I'll save that for a different posting. I mean, if you have the means, why not use it for your own benefit. The political party (citated in the newspaper) further states that teenagers who make sexual oriented movies and pictures are making kiddieporn and should be prosecuted. (that's also stuff to think about...)

Here's the part that caught my attention: For a while now, The Foundation "Kinderconsument" (a foundation for kids and teenagers who use multimedial technology) has been pleading for a countrywide ban of cell phones at high schools... Hello!?(jaw on floor) That really surprises me. I would have expected that a foundation like that should promote and support the use of digital widgets (like phones) and internet/WWW/IM on high schools. I do not want to go into detail on how social structures of teenagers work and how these are supported by technology right now, but look around: Social Networks (Hyves), IM, Cell Phones, Email etc etc... One would say that they probably highly value the ability of "being connected". I use the term ability because when you want and (better yet) need to be connected to your social life, being connected is not a possibility anymore, it's a necessity I dare say. The ability to update yourself with the latest information on the subject you're studying, how others are doing and being able to help eachother via (available) communication technology is crucial nowadays. If you are not connected it is almost safe to say that you are disabled (Borg??) since you missed out on what the rest has been talking about/working on.
Helping, supporting and educating kids and teenagers to fully understand the impact of the capabilities of modern communication technology on their lives is what this foundation should be all about (imho).

k bai thx