Yondr Pouches: Traversing the Sea of Arguments

Tyler Stray | tstray23@dtechhs.org

Tyler Stray | Photo from Yearbook (iClickSmiles)

When considering the numerous arguments that are made for and against the implementation of Yondr pouches at our school, we must realize that neither implementation nor non-implementation of Yondr at Design Tech will be a perfect solution to the problem of phone use. Many issues will remain due to certain tradeoffs, and we can only choose what to prioritize and what not to. 

What I aim to do here is to explore the arguments for and against this implementation. Although I have my own opinions, and even though I will describe why I feel our school would remain better without Yondr pouches, I believe that an exploration of both arguments is necessary. I think this is necessary because there is a sentiment of the opposition on either being dismissive of their arguments present for both students, who are generally against Yondr pouches, and staff, who are generally for them. Neither side feels that they are being heard, or more importantly, listened to. The staff may believe that students will not accept the implementation of Yondr pouches primarily because of the impulse and addiction to use their phones, while the students may believe that staff will not hear their arguments because they are perceived only as children. These mentalities don’t generally allow friendly discourse on the subject, and many of the discussions that I’ve seen have involved some variation of anger or impatience. I hope that what I set forward will allow both sides to be heard and that I’ve accurately represented the arguments of each side to that end.

Statistics and Results

Photo from NPR

Two types of statistics are important to the discussion of Yondr Pouches: Stats on Effectiveness and Stats on Opinions. The statistics on the effectiveness of Yondr pouches portray them as very effective. The one-pager found on Yondr's website, which was cited by staff in an email sent to the school, showed that of the 900 schools surveyed, the majority saw improvements in a variety of ways. 65% of schools saw an improvement in academic performance, 74% an improvement in student behavior, and 83% an improvement in student engagement. On top of this, a survey conducted by The Aragon Outlook found that 88.6% of San Mateo High School staff believed that the use of Yondr pouches at their school should continue. 

These results on effectiveness conflict heavily with the opinions of students. Of over 200 students who were surveyed at Design Tech, the majority had a very negative opinion of their effectiveness. 76.4% believe that Yondr pouches should not be installed at Design Tech, versus 12.5% who thought they should be installed. 58.7% said they believed Yondr would not prevent cell phone use, versus 33.2% who believed they would. 74.0% said they believed student behavior would not improve, versus 9.1% who said it would. 55.3% said the academic performance would not improve, versus 24.0% who said it would. 55.8% said student engagement would not improve, versus 27.9% who said it would. Numerous written responses also displayed opposition to the idea, such as one student who wrote, “This is going to ruin morale, break apart our community, and make people hate admins more.”

Of course, displayed effectiveness is more convincing than individual opinion, but there are reasons to be skeptical of the statistics cited. It is true that a majority of schools see improvements, but what of the hundreds of schools that did not see an improvement? Although 65% saw improvements in academic performance, 35% didn’t see an improvement, representing at least 300 schools. On top of that, over 200 didn’t see improvements in student behavior, and over 150 saw no improvements in student engagement. What set them apart from those that saw improvements? The one-pager provided also doesn’t display whether or not schools that didn’t report positive outcomes had negative outcomes, neutral outcomes, or a combination of the two, which casts doubt on how trustworthy these reports are, especially knowing that they are sourced by the company profiting off of their implementation. Considering the major differences between the “average school” and Design Tech, there’s no reason to assume that our school will certainly improve in these areas solely based on these survey results. Are they helpful in supporting the idea that Yondr pouches will be effective at our school? Probably. Do they entirely justify their implementation, given their costs and potential consequences? Probably not. This is the same for the results of San Mateo High, which is also different from Design Tech in many ways.

Workarounds and Alternatives

As is described by the student body, there are many ways to open a Yondr pouch. Searching “How to Open a Yondr Pouch” on Google gives 20,600 results alone, and there are popular videos on YouTube displaying how to open them, such as the video from LockPickingLawyer with over 900,000 views displaying the creator opening one using only a magnet almost instantly. One student wrote to this end, “Bypassing the Yondr pouch lock is honestly hilariously easy. All someone needs is a magnet.” Students can find ways to open the pouches if they are motivated to. Other methods exist as well, such as banging the pouch on some hard surface, using a replacement burner phone to put inside the pouch, and destroying the pouch itself to get it open. The argument is that if a student was even slightly motivated to use their phone, there are methods to do so that require little effort. If the added effort were to make students less likely to use their phones, then this problem would need to be solved one way or another. At the point where you need more restrictions to see any results, why bother with Yondr pouches at all?

Even if methods of opening Yondr pouches were somehow restricted to the point where students couldn’t use their phones during class, the existence and pervasiveness of Chromebooks can’t be negotiated around. Despite attempts to restrict the use of Chromebooks outside of productive purposes, students can still find things to do on a Chromebook that can easily be more engaging on demand than schoolwork could ever be. Chromebooks could be restricted at certain times, but students will eventually need to work during class through electronic means. It will always rest on the individual student to stay on task, and there will always be a population of students who won’t. If keeping the students on-task will remain the responsibility of the teacher to a similar extent as without implementation of Yondr pouches, then, once again, of what use are they?

Beyond alternatives to phones, there are also alternatives to Yondr pouches that would prove just as effective, if not more, and cheaper. One student wrote, “I do not see the problem with simply requiring that students' phones be left in bags. It always worked at my middle school.” This and similar suggestions would involve much less cost, at perhaps $15 per classroom, or somewhere around $500 in total, assuming that the teachers don’t already have the resources to implement such a system. This is in comparison to Yondr pouches, which cost $15-30 per student per year, which would amount to a total of around $10,000 per year. These sorts of systems have been done before at d.tech, such as in Nick Barella’s prototyping class during the 2019-2020 school year, and are described by students as having a relatively positive impact. These systems would face the same problems as Yondr pouches, of course, since students would still prefer to have their phones and teachers would still need to monitor students for phone use. However, the reduced cost could allow resources to go into other things, like improved academic support. 

Consequences and Mental Health

Under the assumption that students will obey the Yondr pouch restrictions, there would be many restrictions on the students’ ability to communicate. Only during emergencies would students likely have the same availability of communication, since the front office could just call the student to receive messages with little hassle. What Yondr pouches will restrict is communication for work and transportation. 

As many students travel long distances to get to and from Design Tech, and since not every student is independent in their means of transportation, communication during school is necessary to get to and from school. Students who are driven by carpool or by parents must know if there are changes to transportation plans, and not knowing of any updates until school is over may be harmful, especially at longer distances. This would also apply to students who have varying means of transportation. Many upperclassmen also must maintain communication with employers, and students who work jobs that require constant communication will suffer as a result of Yondr pouches. One student wrote, “I have a part-time job after school, and my manager contacts me via text during school hours.” Although these groups likely make up small portions of the school’s population, it’s important to consider how these restrictions negatively impact them.

One of the arguments often given by the staff is that the restriction of phones outside of class, during lunch, and at other times, will improve students’ mental health. It is certainly true that phones can harm mental health, as many studies have shown the negative effects they have. To summarize those points, we know that phones and social media generally increase the likelihood of depression, the likelihood of anxiety, and contribute to poor sleep quality, while in some cases also creating a negative self-image. It’s also argued that restriction of phones during these times will increase communication among students, which would come with improvements to mental health as well. However, improvements to mental health would be inherently limited. Even if schools were to successfully restrict phone use during school, many students will remain spending most of their time outside of school on their phones. The majority of  free time will always rest outside of school, meaning that students will encounter these problems due to using their phones at home. The mental health of a student can only greatly be improved by parent intervention, whether that involves restricting phone use at home or getting some means of help. 

Communication arguably will improve at school since, without their phones, students would be more inclined to speak to one another during Lunch. However, this wouldn’t be the scenario for every student. Only those who are generally socially adept will be likely to communicate during lunch. To students who aren’t, Yondr pouches remove one of their potential means of escape from their loneliness. These students may communicate online with others, or they may simply use some sort of entertainment or social media, but they will be left without those things if their phones are taken away. This problem may only be solved by allocating adequate resources to help them, but the monetary costs of Yondr pouches would take away from such resources. 

Another group harmed by this decision may be students with IEPs or 504s that require them to use their phones during class. There are few workarounds for students who may need their phones for work, and in the case that phones are restricted, having their phones out would paint a big red target on their back. It takes away the element of choice that they have about whether or not they want others to know about their IEP or 504. These students would be very open to discrimination as other students realize why they are permitted to have their phones out. One may argue that Design Tech is an open community, and that discrimination is unlikely as a result, but is it effective to rely on the blind hope of goodwill? There will always be some students who aren’t as open, regardless of our school’s mission and attempts to reprimand them.

There are many of these smaller consequences that add up. Students won’t be able to easily listen to music, which can often improve studying and focus during independent work time. Teachers would have to work around the fact that students couldn’t easily submit paper assignments to Canvas by taking photos with their phones. The system to unlock phones may cause large crowds to emerge, needing to unlock their phones before leaving school. Certain curiosity projects require the use of phones to work properly and would be restricted as a result. Students may need to log into other emails and accounts for concurrent enrollment, which is sometimes blocked on Chromebooks. These and other consequences must be considered when deciding whether or not Yondr pouches are a good idea. 

Conclusion

Although I primarily criticized the arguments for the implementation of Yondr pouches, I still believe that there are tradeoffs that come with each option. In all likelihood, Yondr pouches would slightly improve classroom attention and academic performance, and it would slightly improve mental health and communication between students. However, the consequences of these decisions aren’t negligible and are why I think their implementation would overall harm Design Tech. Many people would be negatively impacted by the decision, the approximately $10,000 annually that it would cost to implement which could be redirected to other, more beneficial purposes, and there are many ways that it would be ineffective as compared to other methods. 

Something I didn’t consider in any of the categories above was how this would impact school culture. For a long time, students have disliked the decisions made by the Design Tech staff. The school’s personal devices policy made waves at the beginning of this school year, and changes to the WYN schedule’s allocation of club times made a stir when it was implemented, among a few other events. These decisions, regardless of whether or not they improved the school, alienated students who felt as though they had no say in the matter. A student to this end wrote, “I truly find it sad to see d.tech is going in this direction; it is completely against their values.” I think that this is one of the more important problems with the implementation of Yondr pouches. It’s simply that it’s against the will of the majority of students to do so, and it deepens a divide between the students and the staff members that has been growing since the end of quarantine. Maybe there will be more improvements than consequences with the implementation of Yondr pouches, but that won’t negate the fact that there are more serious problems that underlie just this Yondr pouch argument which students and staff will need to work to solve in the near future.