The Virginia Governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed Executive Order 33 in July of 2024. This order attempts to create cellphone free environments for “Virginia’s K-12 Public Schools.” The order says that there’s a mental health issue with students, which is “driven in part by extensive social media usage and widespread cell phone possession among students.” It cites that “Children spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on Social Media” and it says that spending more than 3 hours a day on Social media doubles mental health issues in adolescents.
As a response to this, the school issued Yondr pouches to every student. At the beginning of the day, every student has to put their phone, if they brought it to school, into the Yondr pouch, and seal it. That way, they can’t access their phone, but will still keep it with them in the pouch. At the end of the day, you can go to the Yondr Unlocking Bases all around the school, tap your pouch on the base to unlock it, freeing the phone and allowing it to be used. The magnet on the bases will not be on until the end of the day, at 2:15, making them useless until then. Phone use will still be available for after-hours. The issue of kids using phones during school is now mostly solved.
But, do the pouches actually help? Probably. Yondr themselves have said that 83% Saw better student engagement at school, 74% Saw better student behavior, and 65% Saw academic improvement, all three of these are very significant percentages. Plus, millions of people already use Yondr daily.
With these pouches, kids are paying attention to class, and socializing more, instead of being glued to a phone and being at high risk for mental health issues. With one of the biggest distractions of school likely to be completely eliminated, teachers now can manage their learning space better, and students can now focus on one of the most important things a person can have: Education.
