I think I’ve always been someone who tries to see all sides of an issue.

I can even date the exact moment that I consciously realized I was an independent thinker. I was sitting in my 10th grade U.S. history class learning what a “partisan” was, and remember thinking to myself, “Well that’s dumb. Why would anyone go along with an idea they don’t actually believe in just because their political party said so?”

This innate unwillingness to be told what to think has served me well in a journalism career, making it easy (most of the time, anyways) to approach issues with neutrality and an open mind.

This is how I know that the issue of Yondr pouches in East Providence’s secondary schools, which appears on our front page this week, is a tough one. Because I can’t quite figure out where I land on it.

Immediately, my mind goes to the positives.

Today’s youth are being poisoned by their devices, and the interconnected world that they become plugged into utilizing them. This is not a matter of debate for me. It’s a matter of simple observation.

Grown adults are unable to handle the power of these devices, and the carefully-calculated algorithms that drive them to engage in, frankly, embarrassingly juvenile behavior with one another. The rewiring this must be doing to the malleable minds of our youth is, to me, frightening.

Studies have consistently shown that academic achievement improves when phones are removed. Studies also show that students who have their phones removed from them during the school day actually find themselves relieved by the forced removal of that burden. Society may not care that tech and social media tycoons are enriching themselves at the expense of our children’s short-term and long-term mental health, but at least within our local schools, we can show them that care.

Now, putting myself into the mind of a parent, I can understand the hesitation about not being able to reach my child in the event of an emergency. While such a thing was impossible to do just a short time ago (when these same parents went to school, by the way), I understand the world has changed. The dangers, and the existential fears, have changed with it.

However, I would encourage parents to reach out to their local SRO or law enforcement official, who will likely tell you (as law enforcement agencies across the country have said) that hundreds of kids sending out messages (of potentially incorrect information) in the midst of a rapidly-developing crisis is actually worse for everyone.

To ease the minds of parents, schools need to develop rock-solid protocols for how an emergency can be quickly and effectively communicated to authorities, with multiple failsafes included. It won’t be perfect, but the benefits of having no phones in school (at any point in the day), to me, are too worthy to pass up due to fear over something horrible possibly happening.

My last thought on the matter is that this is not something that should have come as a mandate from the state. While I believe it came from a place of good intentions, it is a clumsy overreach of authority which requires school districts already strapped for cash to spend more on technology that is provided by only one or two vendors.

School districts should be able to come to these kinds of decisions on their own, and perhaps be incentivized to do so via a state grant that pays (or at least provides match funding) for the investment required to make it a reality.

I guess you could say I am tentatively in favor of phones being locked away for the whole day, but I understand completely if you disagree.