Seven Signs Your School Has a Demogorgon-Sized Phone Problem

Cell phones have become a huge distraction problem in schools, and strange things are happening because of it. If you run a school, here are eight signs that the Upside Down has quietly moved onto your campus and that you have a demogorgon-sized phone problem.

1. The Upside Down hallway

Passing periods used to sound like a stampede of caffeinated Dustins. Now it’s as silent as the Upside Down. Students float between classes in silence, faces lit blue by their screens, like extras wandering a Hawkins Lab corridor after the power cut out. Everything looks calm, but there’s a storm brewing underneath. If your hallways are like this, it’s a sign you’ve got a demogorgon-sized phone problem.

2. Vecna's curse at the lunch table

Have you ever seen four students at a lunch table together and the only things moving are their thumbs? Vecna's victims freeze mid-moment, trapped somewhere inside their own heads. A  cafeteria full of students’ eyes locked into separate screens looks much the same (minus the levitation and the ominous cello music). If your lunchroom has gotten so quiet that you can hear the vending machine humming, you have a demogorgon-sized phone problem.

3. The Mind Flayer effect

The Mind Flayer works by spreading through everything it touches, and a single phone buzz behaves much the same way in a classroom. Once one student is possessed by their phone, the distraction spreads like the Mind Flayer's grip. The kid next to them gets pulled in, then the row behind that, and soon half the room is staring into the void while your lesson on the Treaty of Versailles slowly dies at the whiteboard. 

5. The Byers' wall of lights

Joyce Byers lost communication with her son when he went into the Upside Down, so she covered her living room in Christmas lights and painted letters across the wall to get insight into what was happening. If you’re an admin, you’re just like Joyce. You’re desperately looking for ways to understand what’s actually happening with your phone policy (if you have one). But without real data, all you get is random lights flickering in your office and no real insight.

6. Steve's babysitting problem

Steve Harrington went from king of the school to babysitting a group of kids he never agreed to supervise. Your teachers know exactly how he feels. They signed up to teach chemistry or literature and now spend a good chunk of every period on phone patrol, and unlike Steve they don't even get any tools to help them. If your teachers feel like Steve, you’ve got a demogorgon-sized phone problem at your school. 

7. The gate that never stays closed

Hawkins closed the gate more than once, but it kept reopening. The same thing happens to plenty of phone policies. You launch one, it holds for a few weeks, then enforcement fatigue sets in, and the gate quietly opens again while everyone insists the policy is technically still active. If you have relaunched yours more than once, your gate is barely being held shut by a handful of exhausted adults.

How to close the gate

If more than one of these sent a chill up your spine, then you’ve got a demogorgon-sized phone problem at your school or district. Things may seem fine on the surface, but a cell-phone-Upside-Down is closer to your campus than you thought. 

While a cell phone policy can look good on paper, actually bringing it to life is a whole other beast. TRUCE Family’s app automatically blocks distracting apps on student cell phones on campus, during school hours so teachers can teach and students can focus. 

Closing the gate in Hawkins took a psychic teenager, a police chief, and a van full of kids with walkie-talkies, but closing yours takes a good deal less with TRUCE Family

Want to see how you can close the gate without confiscating a single phone? Let's connect (walkie talkie's not required).