What peers? They mostly play with neighborhood kids, and we have contact info for a few that live further away and arrange things that way. Our kids aren't teenagers yet, but my sister's are and they seem to do fine without phones as well. My friends growing up mostly had phones, and I worked around that as well.

I think people are making a much bigger deal about it than it really is. Maybe it's a larger issue in other areas, but honestly, my kids mostly want one to play games, not contact friends.

We certainly reevaluate regularly, but I'll need a pretty good reason to give my kids their own phones. I'm much more likely to have a loaner they can share, and only for a fixed amount of time.

They where in NL though, you just wheren't allowed to have them in class.
But a lot of people here cycle to school and sometimes though roads that aren't that safe so in that case it was handy to have a mobile phone to call with.

And what if they get into trouble on their way home? Or the way to the bus, supermarket or whatnot?

Teachers can't guage worth a damn

Sure, but it is not a study general public, like us on lemmy, should care about. It needs a follow up before making decisions.

Yet you can already see people calling for phone bans...

Yes, but there's a huge degree of bias whenever you ask people anything. Obviously teachers are going to think phones are detrimental to class focus, and thus they're more likely to say their ban helped with that same focus

Same thing If you asked students, but reversed

Good example! That poll would be a relevant result for a percent of the population the believes in god.

Short term and long term impacts are both worthy of study, surely.

Both great metrics to have, true.

What trouble? Adults don't want to mess with kids (most child abuse happens with close aquaintances, not random crazies on the street), so their biggest threat is going to be bullies around their age, and a parent stepping in will just make that problem worse, so they'll need to learn to deal with that on their own anyway.

I personally have never had an issue going to/from school, other than the typical bullying on the bus. The most likely problem they'd run into is getting hit by a car, in which case they need paramedics and police, not me, and those emergency services will call me once they identify them (and I trust random strangers to call emergency services if a kid gets hit).

The only time I expect my kid to need to call is if they're at a party or something outside of school and need to be picked up because they don't feel comfortable. When they get to an age where that's a thing, we'll have a loaner phone for them to use.

Sure, but short term impacts are generally unreliable, since there are a lot of cases of coincidence, like a good policy having no immediate impact or a bad policy having the desired impact. Longer term studies account for that randomness.

Falling off your bike and cracking your head open or breaking something or whatever. I used to bike through somewhere where not a lot of people would pass by.

Or even worse, get hit by a tractor who didn't see you and not be found until later, which can cause permanent damage. Happened to somebody I know sadly, she is disabled for life now. Yes, the person in the tractor should have been more careful and have seen her, but you can hit somebody with one of those and not notice it.

I also never said they should use the phone to call the parents, you can also call 112 with those.

Right, but if you're in a situation where you need emergency services, chances are you won't be in a situation to call. For the vanishingly low chance of that being necessary (esp. in my case where I take them to/from school since there's no bus service), I trust strangers to call since my area is sufficiently densely populated for someone to see what happened.

If you live in an area where such things are more likely, I absolutely agree that you should be able to make that choice. I firmly oppose any school-wide ban on phones for that reason, I just happen to agree that, generally speaking, kids don't need and shouldn't have phones.

And if you really feel the need for your kid to contact you or emergency services, there are devices like Gabb watches that have only the functions you need. So please, consider those before considering a smartphone.

Kids shouldn’t have smartphones no, but it can he handy for a group of kinds to have at least some kind of phone. Heck even a phone without a sim can be used to call 112.

With nothing else but the blank walls and the cruel clock now students have nowhere else to turn to to pass the time but listening to teacher blab his time-filling spiel. If they're very lucky, the students might learn a single thing that matters before days end, but of course that remains exceedingly unlikely.