Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) called for a ban on cellphones in every K-12 school in the U.S. during a speech in Washington on Thursday.
“As we increase technology in schools, we also have to acknowledge where technology is already harming our kids,” Slotkin told an audience at the Center for American Progress Action.
“Too many students are lagging in the people and the problem-solving skills that will be even more valuable in the future economy, and that’s largely because of social media and cellphones,” she continued. “To that end, we should ban cellphones in every K-12 classroom in America.”
Slotkin went on to say that Congress and the courts should hold social media companies accountable for the use of algorithms that can cause children to be addicted to “extreme content.”
Slotkin’s comments come a week after she and Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced bipartisan legislation to ban cellphones in schools for children of U.S. military members.
In the same speech, Slotkin called for a “thoughtful” introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) in schools “balancing the need to prepare young people with the need to develop good, old-fashioned critical thinking skills.”
“Rules of the road for AI are absolutely vital because if we’ve learned anything from the internet revolution, the tech industry will not police itself,” she said.
Slotkin’s comments on cellphones and AI in the classroom were part of a broader speech, which she called an “economic war plan.”
The Michigan senator noted that the fundamentals of the plan are jobs, education, housing, security, energy, environment and health care.
“Back during my war planning days at the Pentagon, the first thing we did was lay out the specific problem we were trying to solve. The middle class is shrinking. That’s not a political statement, it’s a fact. This core issue unites moderates, progressives and everything in between,” she said.
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