Our children are bombarded by technology, certainly a natural progression of our tech-dependent society. But our educational institutions, with tech companies’ eager help, have enabled this growth – and dependency.
Surveys <a href="https://www.edweek.org/technology/what-the-massive-shift-to-1-to-1-computing-means-for-schools-in-charts/2022/05">indicate</a> that more than 90% of middle and high school students and more than 80% of elementary students have a school-issued learning device.
Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-03-19/michael-bloomberg-kids-are-spending-too-much-class-time-on-laptops?utm_campaign=wp_the_technology_202&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter">pointed out</a> that children are spending too much time on laptops at school, citing that “social skills are deteriorating and test scores are near historic lows,” and called on schools to turn back to “using books and pens.”
Children’s near ubiquitous use of screens at school is worth reconsidering, in light of the dismal <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nation’s Report Card</a> finding that students are losing ground in reading and are not improving in math. While screens in schools may not be the only reason children are failing, they also don’t appear to be helping.
This is one reason why there’s a growing movement of school districts and states taking steps to restrict students’ cell phone use in classrooms. A 2023 <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/02/health/phones-allowed-school-children-wellness/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> found that “97% of 11- to 17-year-olds use their phones during school time.”
Teachers see the impact of cell phone use in their classrooms. According to a Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/12/72-percent-of-us-high-school-teachers-say-cellphone-distraction-is-a-major-problem-in-the-classroom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> conducted in fall 2023, 72% of U.S. high school teachers consider cell phone distraction a major problem in their classrooms. Middle school teachers (33%) and elementary school teachers (6%) also share concerns about student distraction due to cell phones.
Phones are not only distracting to children (and let’s admit it, they are for adults too), children are especially vulnerable to addictive technology and powerful algorithms that feed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tech-and-tv-study-shows-excessive-screen-time-explicit-content-changing-the-teenage-brain" target="_blank" rel="noopener">harmful content</a> to them. Children can also be groomed by predators and exposed to sexually explicit and graphically violent content on social media platforms. Personal tech can also be weaponized in schools – creating and magnifying bullying situations against classmates and teachers.
For all of these reasons and more, children should not have smartphone access during the school day.
I am encouraged that school districts and elected leaders across the U.S. have been working to restrict cell phones in classrooms. The issue is even <a href="https://apnews.com/article/school-cell-phone-bans-states-e6d1fe8ddfde33f086d5cd2a19f4c148" target="_blank" rel="noopener">uniting Republicans and Democrats</a>. Los Angeles Unified School District banned them, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has unveiled a plan to ban them, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wants to restrict them, to name a few. Across the pond, Denmark has banned phones in schools and there are calls for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/05/ban-mobile-phones-schools-europe-children" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rest of the EU</a> to do the same.
The Parents Television and Media Council’s whitepaper, <a href="https://www.parentstv.org/resources/PDF/Studies/240723-REPORT-School-Phone-Policies.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Smartphones in the Classroom: What States are Doing to Confront These Digital Distractions</a> (July 2024) revealed that 28 U.S. states made efforts to eliminate or restrict cell phones in classrooms. That number is certainly larger now.
For this to work though, it will take parents uniting against these digital distractions, as many parents want to be able to reach their child instantaneously if there’s an emergency. While this is a valid concern, most schools already encourage parents to call the school office should they need to reach their child.
There are enough anecdotes alone to know that freeing children from cell phones in school is wise. School administrators have seen children and teens increasingly interact with each other.
A Study.com <a href="https://teachinglicense.study.com/featured-insights/mobile-bans-increase-engagement-and-learning-time.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> found that “76% of teachers working in schools with strict cell phone policies believe that cell phone bans increase student engagement,” and “70% believe [the bans] enhance student safety.”
“Students were actually paying attention to his lessons,” <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-24/yondr-pouches-enforce-school-cell-phone-bans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> a high school dean of students about one teacher’s feedback after the Los Angeles Unified School District’s cell phone ban began.
If our children are to succeed in school, it’s time to reduce screen time – and cell phone use – during the school day.
* * *
Melissa Henson is the Vice President of the <a href="http://www.parentstv.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parents Television and Media Council</a>, a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment. On X: @ThePTC.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Teens in circle holding smart mobile phones – Multicultural young people using cellphones outside – Teenagers addicted to new technology concept

It’s Time To Remove Cell Phones From The Classroom

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Actor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/celebrities">Woody Harrelson</a> recently explained why he doesn’t carry a cell phone.
The 62-year-old star discussed his reasoning during an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8K9V3XWyqQ">interview</a> on SiriusXM’s &#8220;Where Everybody Knows Your Name&#8221; podcast with Ted Danson, which aired Wednesday. Harrelson was talking about issues with cell phones in a conversation with actress Kristin Bell. 
&#8220;And let me explain something about Woody,&#8221; Danson said. &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t have a phone. He&#8217;s one of those bullies in life that make other people carry his phone for him.&#8221;
Harrelson replied that while the statement was “not exactly true,” he did have a complicated relationship with the technology after observing certain habits.
&#8220;Well, I just don&#8217;t like to have, you know, to be readily available to any human being at any time,&#8221; Harrelson said. 
Bell agreed, saying, &#8220;I hear that. It doesn&#8217;t feel good.&#8221;
&#8220;That&#8217;s not the reason,” Harrelson corrected. “I like to be in touch with people in a way, but I don&#8217;t like the appendage on my appendage.&#8221;
He added, &#8220;You know, I made a thing where I&#8217;m like, &#8216;Okay, I&#8217;m gonna set a two-hour limit on my phone,&#8217; because this is, I&#8217;ve given it up now three, three and a half years, but back then I was like, &#8216;Okay, I&#8217;m going to set this limit. Two hours.&#8217; It&#8217;s like 9:30. You know, I&#8217;ve already hit my limit at 9:30, so I woke up, and I&#8217;ve been on it two hours already because, cuz you know how it can just keep going and going.&#8221;
Danson asked Harrelson if those limits applied to certain things on the phone, like apps or texting. 
&#8220;Texting and, well, I don&#8217;t know about apps, but texting and also, you know, whatever, so I just finally, I wanted to be able to be in a, like if I were out to dinner with you, right? And there&#8217;s just a lull in the conversation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m on the phone. ‘Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.’ You know, and I look and I&#8217;m back down to the device and this.&#8221;
Bell mentioned how her two children helped her realize how excessive her phone usage was.
&#8220;But I think once you recognize that, it reshapes, at least it did for me, my whole perspective, and I think my kids had a lot to do with that, too, where I realized they were talking to me and my kids are also very, like, emotionally articulate,&#8221; the “Frozen” actress said.
&#8220;So, if I&#8217;d be checking something, even if it would be the most valid thing ever, like, ‘Oh, her Jujitsu class is changing times tomorrow. I need to tell the other moms.&#8217; Whatever. A valid thing and one of my kids would look at me and go, &#8216;I just feel like you&#8217;re disconnected. I don&#8217;t have your whole attention, Mom,&#8217; and I&#8217;m like, ‘Oh f***,’&#8221; she went on.
Bell added, &#8220;When they get home from school, I do put it down. I put it upstairs,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not in my ether when we&#8217;re bopping around the house at night and I feel, I really enjoy being less connected to it. It&#8217;s such a trick.&#8221;
Danson concluded by saying he could understand Harrelson’s position. &#8220;Yeah. I admire what you do with phones by the way, Woody. I need to emulate that more.&#8221;

Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson Explains Why He No Longer Carries A Cell Phone

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The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/americans-across-the-country-impacted-by-massive-cellular-outage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cellular outage</a> that crippled service for AT&amp;T customers all over the U.S. on Thursday was likely the result of a software update gone wrong, the company said. 
After speculation that the massive outage could have been caused by a cyberattack or even a sun flare, AT&amp;T released a <a href="https://about.att.com/pages/network-update" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> explaining that it believes the outage was caused by “the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack.” 
&#8220;We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve,&#8221; AT&amp;T added. 
Sources familiar with the situation told <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/att-outage-impacting-us-customers-company/story?id=107440297" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ABC News</a> that initial findings from the company pointed to a software update glitch and the company was not concerned about any malicious external activity causing the disruption. National Security Advisor John Kirby said on Thursday that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security had been investigating the cause of the outage, concerned about a possible cyberattack. 
AT&amp;T’s service issues on Thursday morning prevented at least 70,000 customers from using the basic functions on their phones, with some customers also unable to call 911. The outages mainly impacted people in Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Miami, Dallas, Indianapolis, and Louisville, leaving them unable to call, text, or use the internet on their cell phones, according to tracking site <a href="https://downdetector.com/status/att/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Downdetector</a>.
There were also reports of outages from Verizon and T-Mobile customers, but those companies said the reports of service problems came from customers attempting to communicate with people on other networks.
Some concerned and frustrated AT&amp;T customers went to their local stores to find out what was happening. One <a href="https://twitter.com/raphousetv7/status/1760813398907040118?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1760813398907040118%7Ctwgr%5Ebc963d4502bda4fc0f8f81a6f118c3050c9e2a71%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2024%2F02%2F23%2Fbusiness%2Fatampt-blames-software-update-glitch-for-outage%2F">video</a> posted to X showed an AT&amp;T employee telling angry customers that the company was experiencing an outage and there was nothing he could do. 
One AT&amp;T customer, who waited outside a store in South Florida, said he couldn’t do his job since his phone service wasn’t working. 
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&#8220;I&#8217;m an electrician. Every morning I receive a call to let me know where I&#8217;m heading for to work and right now I don&#8217;t even know where I&#8217;m going,&#8221; said Dave Cash, according to <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/local-news/investigations/cause-of-at-t-outage-remains-mystery-as-south-florida-residents-flock-to-stores" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WPTV</a>. 
AT&amp;T said on Thursday afternoon that its network had been restored to normal. 
&#8220;We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers. We sincerely apologize to them. Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future,&#8221; the company said. 
Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.

AT&T Ahead Of Earnings Figures

AT&T Says Massive Service Outage Likely Caused By Software Update Glitch

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Tens of thousands of Americans across the country had their cellular service disrupted earlier Thursday morning as AT&amp;T’s network was reportedly down for over 60,000 customers. 
There were also reports of outages from Verizon and T-Mobile customers. The outages mainly impacted people in Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Miami, Dallas, Indianapolis, and Louisville, leaving them unable to call, text, or use the internet on their cell phones, according to tracking site Downdetector. 
The spike in outages first occurred at 3:33 a.m. CST with 32,836 reports of disruptions before dipping at around 5:00 a.m. before jumping back up to around 66,000 by 6:51 a.m., <a href="https://downdetector.com/status/att/">according</a> to Downdector. 
T-Mobile customers also reported nearly 1,500 disruptions, with highest number reported at 6:39 a.m. Around the same time, over 3,500 Verizon customers <a href="https://downdetector.com/status/verizon/">reported</a> disruptions as well. The Verizon and T-Mobile customers largely overlapped with the areas where the AT&amp;T outages were reported. According to T-Mobile, this occurred because they were attempting to communicate with people on other networks. 
The San Francisco Fire Department said early Thursday morning that it was aware of the service problems saying that people were having trouble calling 911. 
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&amp;T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the department said in a post on X. “We are actively engaged and monitoring this. The San Francisco 911 center is still operational.”
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The department also told people to try call using a landline instead of a cell phone.
“If you are an AT&amp;T customer and cannot get through to 911, then please try calling from a landline. If that is not an option then please try to get ahold of a friend or family member who is a customer of a different carrier and ask them to call 911 on your behalf.Do not call or text 911 to simply test your phone service,” the department said. 
AT&amp;T has not yet issued any statements on why the outages have occurred, but a spokesman did tell Fox that the network encourage people to use WiFi calling in the meantime.
&#8220;Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,&#8221; spokesman Jim Greer <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/cell-phone-outage-hits-att-customers-nationwide-verizon-tmobile-users-also-affected?intcmp=tw_fnc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Fox.

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It’s nearly impossible not to smile at a young baby when confronted with a toothless grin — and even a difficult day can improve when a child, unprompted, offers a wave. These connections with children are sweet and endearing, but they offer something even more important: they give them developmental skills that will help them excel later in life.
Parents may be aware of their small child’s need for interaction beginning at a young age, and research has shown that eye contact in particular is imperative for infants’ development. In a 2002 paper, researchers <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC123187/#:~:text=Making%20eye%20contact%20is%20the,of%20others%20conveys%20significant%20information." target="_blank" rel="noopener">conducted</a> experiments showing the importance of making eye contact with newborns. “Making eye contact is the most powerful mode of establishing a communicative link between humans,” the authors noted. “During their first year of life, infants learn rapidly that the looking behaviors of others conveys significant information.” They found that babies preferred looking at people who were making eye contact with them, noting that “[t]he exceptionally early sensitivity to mutual gaze [eye contact] … is arguably the major foundation for the later development of social skills.”
Interactions with children at a young age play a major role in the development of the child, especially communication skills. Abby Barnes, a speech therapist,<a href="https://www.expressable.com/learning-center/babies-and-toddlers/parent-phone-use-can-affect-kids-development" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> discusses</a> how undivided attention from caregivers helps babies master communication capabilities even before they can talk. Barnes details how simply speaking to one’s child can help them in so many areas, such as “[p]lay development,” “[t]heir ability to form phrases and sentences,” “[b]ack and forth interactions,” “eye contact,” and skills in communicating what they want and need. All of these skills help them grow and become high-functioning adults in society who have the ability to interact with people in both casual circumstances and on deep, emotional levels.
In recent years, however, a new object has been the focus of our attention and children are taking note. Young babies are often enthralled with a parent’s smartphone. This can be the case even if the child is not allowed to use the phone or interact with the screen. The lights are enticing, but they are also picking up on our own obsession with the devices.
Dubbed “<a href="https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_dangers_of_distracted_parenting">distracted parenting</a>,” concern has increased over parents’ use of their mobile devices when they are with their children — not only because of the dangers it may pose in a high-risk setting, but because of how the child’s development could be impaired.
According to Dr. Michael Mintz, a clinical psychologist at Children’s National Hospital, babies <a href="https://www.romper.com/p/why-do-babies-love-cell-phones-bright-screens-are-only-part-of-it-19369593" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notice</a> the attachment adults have to their devices as they get close to turning one year old. “They observe adults spending long periods of time looking at their phones, and they probably notice how frequently we tend to have our phones in our hands,&#8221; Mintz told Romper.
<div id="attachment_638575" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-638575" class="wp-image-638575 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-864x576.jpg" alt="Father working from home while holding toddler" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-1305308957-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />MoMo Productions. Getty Images.</div>
Children’s device activity is a common consideration among parents who try to limit or control how often their child uses a screen. They might be missing the point, however, if they focus all of their efforts on how to regulate the screen time of their kids instead of considering how often their own eyes are glued to screens when they are around their little ones. Research shows that when parents use cell phones in front of children, it has a negative impact on the child’s overall development and wellbeing. 
In a 2022 <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4731" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a>, researchers found that parents reported that their children had a lower emotional intelligence if the parent used their mobile device more often in front of their child. A 2016 study <a href="https://dennis-tiwary.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Myruski_et_al-2017-Developmental_Science_Still-Face.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a> that a mother’s phone use has an impact on the social-emotional functioning of infants. When a mother reported using her cell phone more often, the child was less likely to explore his or her surroundings while she was distracted. Children also engaged less with the mother when the mother went back to interacting normally with the baby.
Boston University School of Medicine researchers also <a href="https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2014/12/09/mobile-device-use-leads-to-few-interactions-between-mother-and-child-during-mealtime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discovered</a> that mothers who used their cell phones were less likely to engage in conversation with their children during mealtimes. They had 20% fewer verbal interactions and 39% fewer nonverbal interactions, which can ultimately result in a less emotionally secure child.
Parental use of cell phones affects the ways in which children behave in public, as well, which is evidenced through an experiment conducted by one of the corresponding authors for the previous study, Dr. Jenny Radesky, in 2015. Radesky, along with two other researchers, <a href="https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/133/4/e843/32773/Patterns-of-Mobile-Device-Use-by-Caregivers-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">watched</a> 55 caregivers as they ate with at least one child in fast food settings. As they observed, they took notes, finding that 40 caregivers used their devices while eating with the children. Radesky <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/04/21/304196338/for-the-childrens-sake-put-down-that-smartphone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that lots of the caregivers were more interested in the phone than they were in the children.
“[Children] learn language, they learn about their own emotions, they learn how to regulate them,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They learn by watching us how to have a conversation, how to read other people&#8217;s facial expressions. And if that&#8217;s not happening, children are missing out on important development milestones.”
<div id="attachment_638577" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-638577" class="size-large wp-image-638577" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-864x576.jpg" alt="Full length of mother lifting daughter with legs while lying in park" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/GettyImages-492275653-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Morsa Images. Getty Images.</div>
Radesky discovered that when a child’s parents were heavily absorbed in their mobile devices, the child was more likely to misbehave, attempting to receive attention from the parent. The researchers also pointed out that the more a caregiver was absorbed by a device, the more likely they were to react sternly to a child acting out.
Catherine Steiner-Adair is a psychologist and author of “The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age.” She spoke with 1,000 children, interviewing them about their parents’ use of cell phones and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/04/21/304196338/for-the-childrens-sake-put-down-that-smartphone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> NPR that the discussions often included feelings like “sad, mad, angry and lonely.” One girl told Steiner-Adair that she felt “boring…because [my dad] will take any text, any call, anytime — even on the ski lift!”
The ways in which parents <a href="https://www.unicef.org/parenting/child-care/what-you-need-know-about-parent-child-attachment#:~:text=A%20positive%20early%20bond%20lays,challenges%20and%20recover%20from%20setbacks." target="_blank" rel="noopener">connect</a> with their children have major <a href="https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2014/12/09/mobile-device-use-leads-to-few-interactions-between-mother-and-child-during-mealtime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">implications</a> for the psychological wellbeing of the child and who he or she will become in the future. By gazing at our phones instead of our children, we are failing to provide them with the connections they crave. As mobile devices take the place of in-person interactions and allow us to receive information at a moment’s notice, they threaten to become a barrier between ourselves and the people we are able to impact the most.
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Why Children Need Parents To Put The Phone Down And Look Them In The Eye

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A major controversy erupted last week involving a country singer. I’m not talking about Jason Aldean. 
I’m talking about Miranda Lambert, who ignited a fierce and important debate when she made the decision to stop in the middle of her concert in Las Vegas to lecture some fans in the front row who were taking selfies. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Miranda Lambert STOPS CONCERT to Call Out Fans Taking Selfies" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MPDBDo0Oy3k?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Apparently, these fans were busy taking pictures of themselves instead of watching the show, and so Lambert decided to shame them in front of thousands of people. A decision that many on social media decried as excessive and bullying — but one that I fully and enthusiastically support. 
I will explain why in a moment. 
First, we have to get the other side of the story from the selfie culprits themselves, who were interviewed about the traumatic incident on Good Morning America. Here’s what they had to say:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Debate over concert etiquette after Miranda Lambert pauses performance l GMA" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mdo4Cc_M4as?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Well, I’m glad that we heard from the experts. The experts on phone usage at concerts. Good Morning America brought in the licensed, credentialed, concert selfie experts to give us the news that people take selfies at concerts a lot. We could not have known this without them. We needed their guidance and insight. We need the experts to help us navigate through every facet of life and answer every question, no matter how seemingly obvious and banal. Thank God for the experts. All hail the experts.
But this still leaves the question about whether Miranda Lambert was right to publicly scold a group of women for taking a few selfies, and the answer is that yes, she was. It is about time that someone in a position of influence — however mild that influence may be — stands up and speaks out against the selfie scourge that has gripped hold of our society for decades now. It has become so endemic, so inherent, that it seems pointless to complain about it. But the pointlessness of a complaint has never stopped me before, and it won’t now.
You do not need to take a picture of every single thing you experience in your life. You do not need documentation of every moment. You especially do not need documentation of yourself experiencing every moment. I’ve never understood the motivation here, which is why I never take selfies unless someone stops me in public and asks for one. Even then, I only do it because I’m afraid that if I refuse they’ll call up TMZ and complain about how rude Matt Walsh is. At which point, TMZ will respond, “Wait, who is Matt Walsh?” And that would make the whole thing even more embarrassing.
The point is that selfies are pointless. Millions of people carry around phones stocked with hundreds of pictures of their own faces. Just think about that for a moment. And do any of them actually go back and scroll through those pictures, reminiscing about how their faces looked? “Yep, that’s my face at Disney World. There’s my face at Applebee’s. I remember that. I’ll never forget the time my face went to Applebee’s. And wow, there’s my face at grandma’s funeral.”
Is that what people do? Of course, I realize that they aren’t primarily taking pictures in order to store them away as keepsakes, but rather to post them on social media so that everyone else can see. That’s even more pointless. Nobody cares that you were at a Miranda Lambert concert. But if anyone does care, they would probably want to see a picture of Miranda Lambert up on stage. They don’t need to see you in the stands.
Recently I saw a picture a guy posted of himself visiting the pyramids in Egypt. The picture was a selfie with a pyramid in the background, posted to social media for all to enjoy. But if the rest of us want to see a picture from your vacation at all — and we don’t — we’d rather see the pyramids without your face crowding up the frame. How egotistical do you have to be to think that these magnificent three thousand-year-old structures can be improved by adding your face to them?
This is the real tragedy of selfie culture. It encourages you to experience life with your back turned to it, putting yourself at the center of something you aren’t even paying attention to. Our obsession with documenting everything we do — and worse, documenting ourselves doing it, rather than documenting the thing itself — has ironically made it so that we miss out on the very things we are documenting. This is a familiar observation, even cliched, but it’s true. We are so obsessed with creating digital proof that we were there, that we aren’t really there at all.
We need to learn how to simply occupy the space that we are standing in, existing in, and absorbing each present moment as it comes. Personally, I would never go to a Miranda Lambert concert, but if you do go, if you buy the tickets, if you spend the money — too much money — to have that experience, then HAVE that experience. Be there for it, which means not being on your phone.
Now you might argue that taking one quick selfie, while a pointless act, is not going to significantly intrude on your or anyone else’s ability to enjoy the moment. But we all know that these girls were not taking one quick selfie. They were taking a series of shots from different angles, they were posting to Instagram, they were doing little videos for TikTok, then they were taking more selfies, and on and on. I wasn’t there, but I know just from looking at that woman and listening to her speak for five seconds that this is the way it goes.
Even if I’m wrong, even if it was just one brief selfie incident, I would still defend Lambert’s response. What you have to understand is that some of us have grown exhausted with all of this — with the fact that people can’t look up from their phones, with the constant need to document and take pictures and videos — and so we react in what some might consider disproportionate ways when someone pulls out a phone or takes a picture.
My wife will tell you that I have only grown more and more resistant to being involved in any picture or selfie activity as time has gone on. It’s not that I flat-out refuse to be in a picture, or even to take one on occasion. In fact, I just took a picture a few days ago of a nice bass that I caught. It was probably about six pounds. Obviously, I’m going to get a picture of that. Actually, most of the pictures in my phone aren’t photos of my own face but are photos of various fish that I’ve caught. That’s different, though, because I need documentation of these behemoths that I’m landing, or else nobody will believe me.
Anyway, aside from these exceptions, generally I am resistant to posing for pictures or selfies, much to my wife’s chagrin. But my point to her is that we don’t need photographic evidence of every moment. It is good enough that we live those moments, immerse ourselves in them, and hold the memories in our hearts, as people have always done. We don’t need any more selfies. Nobody does.
We need to put down the phone and turn our gaze back upon this great wild world, and these wonderful experiences that are so much larger than a screen, if only we would look up and see it. And yes I will give this whole speech rather than stop for five seconds stop to take a picture. Someone has to take this stand. I am glad to see that I am not totally alone.
Which is why Miranda Lambert certainly is not wrong. Instead, it is the perpetual selfie-takers who are, with a vengeance, quite wrong.

Matt Walsh 5 (1)

You Do Not Need To Take A Picture Of Every Single Thing You Experience In Your Life

Country Music

Culture

Matt Walsh

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/music">Singer</a> Bebe Rexha had to be helped off the stage on Sunday when a cell phone struck her in the head while performing in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/new-york-city">New York City</a>.
Footage of the incident started circulating on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/social-media">social media</a> shortly after it occurred. One viral video shows the phone flying out of the crowd and hitting Rexha in the face. The footage shows the 33-year-old singer falling to her knees on the stage floor. Crew members can be seen rushing to her side to help. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Absolutely great show ruined by a fan throwing their phone at <a href="https://twitter.com/BebeRexha?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BebeRexha</a> hopefully she is ok after that <a href="https://t.co/4eBScgurv5">pic.twitter.com/4eBScgurv5</a>
&mdash; Alex Chavez (@captiv_8_) <a href="https://twitter.com/captiv_8_/status/1670613816957075456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Some outlets <a href="https://etcanada.com/news/1000388/bebe-rexha-taken-to-hospital-to-get-stitches-after-being-hit-in-the-face-with-a-cellphone-during-nyc-gig/">reported</a> that Rexha was taken to the hospital and required stitches. <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2023/06/19/bebe-rexha-phone-hit-face-concert-nyc-stitches-arrest/">According</a> to TMZ, police arrested Nicolas Malvagna on a felony charge because the phone was used as a weapon.
Rexha was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/entertainment">performing</a> at the Rooftop at Pier 17 as part of her “Best F’n Night of My Life” tour.
Another video shows the “I’m Good” singer being helped off the stage. 
“This is Bebe Rexha being rushed out of the concert venue here in NYC after someone threw a f***ing phone and hit her face as she was leaving the stage. We were all having a hell of a good time and so was Bebe, we were all having a blast, I mean who would even do that??? We hope you’re ok,” the Twitter user <a href="https://twitter.com/RossBernaud/status/1670618047260786691">wrote</a> in the caption.
Rexha has five more concerts scheduled in Philadelphia; Washington, DC; Atlanta; Orlando; and Houston. There hasn’t been an update on whether the singer will need to postpone or cancel any of those upcoming performances, Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/global/bebe-rexha-hit-phone-1235648290/">noted</a>.
This isn’t the first time a performer has been struck by flying objects while onstage. In November 2022, singer Harry Styles was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/skittles-takes-out-full-page-ad-urging-fans-not-to-throw-candy-after-harry-styles-incident">hit in the eye</a> with Skittles candy thrown from the crowd and spent the rest of the show rinsing his eyes with water. 
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-92101">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
The company later took out a full-page ad that said, “Protect the rainbow. Taste the rainbow. But please, don’t throw the rainbow.”
Styles was also pelted by a chicken nugget during a show and said, “I don’t eat chicken, sorry! I don’t eat meat,” when concertgoers encouraged him to eat it.

Bebe Rexha

Singer Bebe Rexha Rushed Offstage After Getting Hit In Head By Cell Phone During Show

Singer Bebe Rexha Rushed Offstage After Getting Hit By Cell Phone During Show

Music

Music Industry

New York

New York City

singer

Did the police violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the man accused of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/accused-idaho-killer-tells-prosecution-he-has-no-evidence-to-present-at-trial-yet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slaying four college students</a> in Idaho? 
Much has been made of the fact that authorities relied, in part, on <a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/the-fourth-amendment-does-not-require-law-enforcement-officials-get" target="_blank" rel="noopener">genetic genealogy</a> and DNA evidence to justify the arrest warrants in this case. But the use of such technology, and the way it was likely used in this case, was lawful, as was the use of cell site location information (CSLI) used to track the movement of the suspect’s phone. The Daily Wire will not name the suspect in keeping with a policy of depriving mass murderers of undeserved notoriety.
Police have released a partially redacted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/05/us/bryan-kohberger-affidavit.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">affidavit</a> that offers a clearer picture of the facts of the case and the evidence supporting the alleged killer’s arrest.
<h2>DNA At the Crime Scene</h2>
The four murder victims — all students at the University of Idaho — were found in a house near the Moscow campus. Each was stabbed to death between approximately 4:00 a.m. and 4:25 a.m. on November 13, 2022. A male and female victim were found stabbed to death in a second-floor bedroom.
Two female victims were found in a single bed on the third floor. Next to one of the deceased girls was a tan leather knife sheath. Forensic examination found DNA from an unknown male on the sheath’s button snap.
<h2>Cell Site Location Evidence</h2>
Several months before the murders, on August 21, a county sheriff in Moscow stopped the suspect for a traffic infraction. He was driving a white 2015 Hyundai Elantra with Pennsylvania plates. He provided his cell phone number to the officer.
Every cell phone receives and sends a signal to a local cell tower when the phone is turned on. As the cell phone moves, the signal transfers seamlessly from one tower to the next in the direction the phone is moving. Cell phone service providers keep records on every cell phone using its services, including all cell site location information (CSLI). This information provides a “map” of where and when the phone went while it was on.
Law enforcement applied for and was granted a search warrant for historical phone records for the alleged murderer’s phone number, The records showed the account had been opened on June 23, 2022, for a subscriber with the name of the suspect, who was listed at an address in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. A review of the historical CSLI data revealed that, prior to the date of the murders, the phone had pinged cell towers in the area of murder scene on 12 separate occasions — always in the evening or early morning hours.
In fact, three months before the murders, on August 21st, the suspect’s phone pinged a cell tower that provided coverage to the King Road residence for over an hour, from 10:34 p.m. to 11:35 p.m.
On the night of the murders, CSLI shows the phone at or near the suspects apartment in Pullman, Washington, at 2:42 a.m. For the next five minutes, it moves south through Pullman, then stops pinging altogether — indicating the phone was then either turned off or put in airplane mode.
Two hours later, at 4:48 a.m., the phone signal returned, pinging towers near state highway 95 south of Moscow and Blaine, Idaho. The phone then travelled south to Genesee, Idaho, west to Uniontown, Idaho, and then north, arriving back at the suspect’s apartment at 5:30 a.m.
The CSLI footprint of the suspected killer’s phone is consistent with the times, dates, and routes of the white Elantra seen in video surveillance footage recovered from his neighborhood, his university, and the roads and highways between his apartment and the King Road residence.
Did the police violate the murder suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights by obtaining his CSLI information? Not at all.
In <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-402" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carpenter v. United States</a> (2018), the United States Supreme Court raised the standard for allowing police access to SCLI. Previously, the government would apply for a court order to obtain cell phone records under the Stored Communications Act (SCA). Those requests did not have to meet the “probable cause” standard needed to obtain a search warrant, because the information was considered to be in the hands of a third party. The cell phone user therefore could have no reasonable expectation of privacy over his CSLI.
Carpenter upended that practice, requiring police to seek a search warrant for any CSLI if the scope of the request is for more than seven days of data. In Idaho, the police were fully compliant. They first sought a search warrant for two days of CSLI data, centered around the time of the slayings. After reviewing those records, they then, requested and received a warrant for all CSLI from June to December.
That data paints a damning map of the whereabouts of the suspect’s phone in the months leading up to the murders, and on the night of the crimes. Prosecutors will argue that the alleged killer scoped out the murder site a dozen times, in the dark of night, prior to the quadruple homicides. They will certainly argue that based on the map of the phone’s movement on the night of the murders, the suspect left his residence after 2 a.m., drove toward Idaho, turned off the phone while he committed the murders, and then turned on the phone after the murders were over.
When overlaid with the movement of the white Elantra, the cell phone’s movement would appear to be quite persuasive.
<h2>Genetic Genealogy</h2>
What about the admissibility of that DNA evidence? On December 27, Pennsylvania law enforcement officers retrieved trash from the suspect&#8217;s family residence in Albrightsville. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/486/35/">California v. Greenwood</a> (1988), the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage outside of a home.
Lab testing compared DNA found on some of the retrieved trash and the DNA obtained from the sheath found at the crime scene. The lab concluded that at least 99.9998% of the male population would be “expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father.” In plain English, that means that the trash DNA came from the father of the person who left the DNA on the sheath at the crime scene.
The affidavit is deliberately vague on how the authorities came to this conclusion, but it’s not hard to figure out what happened. No doubt, police subjected the sheath DNA to two separate tests: one to forensically identify the DNA profile for admission into court, and one to create a SNIP-based genetic profile that might enable them to connect that person’s DNA to a close relative. SNIP stands for single-nucleotide polymorphism and is, in layman’s terms, a sequence variation that allows geneticists to identify close relatives through genetic genealogy.
Police were able to tie the profiles of the suspect and his father together and, because the suspect is an only child, this was enough to establish probable cause and arrest him for the homicides.
If the case goes to a contested trial, the government’s case will hinge not only on the CSLI, DNA, and genetic genealogy evidence described above, but also witness testimony, audio evidence, video evidence of the travels of the defendant’s white Elantra, and other evidence of the defendant’s online activities.
Like all defendants, the Moscow murder suspect is presumed innocent unless/until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But there is no doubt that there are no Fourth Amendment issues with respect to the CSLI or DNA evidence in this case.
Cully Stimson is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and deputy director of the think tank’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Pipetting sample into tray for DNA testing

How DNA And Cell Phone Evidence In Idaho Murders Complied With 4th Amendment

Idaho

Murder

Violent Crime

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-brady-discusses-why-he-hopes-his-kids-fail/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NFL legend Tom Brady</a> was seen engaged in an angry phone conversation Wednesday, just after posting an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-brady-announces-retirement-from-football-for-good/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emotional retirement announcement</a>, and a forensic lip reader thinks he knows at least some of what the quarterback had to say.
A bystander caught the end of Brady&#8217;s conversation on video as the seven-time Super Bowl winner attended his daughter’s horse riding lessons near their Florida home. While it was unknown who was on their other end receiving Brady&#8217;s bombs, it was clear the future Hall of Famer was incensed.
“Stop calling me,” an animated Brady began, according to Jeremy Freeman, a forensic lip reader certified by the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre at University College London, The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11707983/Lip-reading-analysis-reveals-Tom-Brady-raged-sounding-stupid-furious-phone-call.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
&#8220;You say that today and that&#8217;s stupid,&#8221; Brady continued, adding, &#8220;I&#8217;ve advised you to stay away from her, she&#8217;s hard work.&#8221;
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, according to Freeman, before concluding, “This has to stop.”
Freeman acknowledged the angle of the video made it difficult to translate the whole conversation.
After the phone call, Brady returned to looking calm as he watched his daughter.
It was all part of a highly emotional day for Brady, who insisted in the earlier retirement announcement that he was done for good with playing football.
“Good morning, guys; I’ll get to the point right away,” Brady stated in the video in which he announced his retirement. “I’m retiring. For good. I know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when I woke up this morning I figured, I’d just press record and let you guys know first. I won’t be long-winded. You only get one super emotional retirement essay, and I used mine up last year, so I really thank you guys so much.”
He started getting emotional as he continued.  To every single one of you for supporting me: my family, my friends, my teammates, my competitors. I could go on forever. There’s too many. Thank you guys for allowing me to live my absolute dream. I wouldn’t change a thing. Love you all.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Truly grateful on this day. Thank you 🙏🏻❤️ <a href="https://t.co/j2s2sezvSS">pic.twitter.com/j2s2sezvSS</a>
&mdash; Tom Brady (@TomBrady) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomBrady/status/1620772095889403905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Brady and his wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, with whom he has two children, divorced in late 2022 after being married for 13 years. That followed a tumultuous year in which Brady announced his retirement in January 2022 but then backtracked 40 days later.
Reports indicate Brady may join Fox Sports, which offered him a 10-year, $375 million contract in 2022, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/sports/football/tom-brady-retires.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times</a>.
Brady’s record playing for the New England Patriots and the Buccaneers includes a record seven Super Bowl victories with five Super Bowl MVP awards, also a record. He holds the record for career completions, passing yards, and passing touchdowns. He was the oldest player in the NFL when he retired, after a season in which he still threw for the third most passing yards in the league.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers v Atlanta Falcons

‘Stop Calling Me’: Lip Reader Translates Tom Brady’s Furious Phone Call

Lip Reader Translates Tom Brady's Furious Phone Call

Sports

Tom Brady

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Monday that officials have a proposal in the works requiring passenger and cargo aircraft in the United States to have 5G-safe equipment by the beginning of 2024.
The agency told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-faa-proposes-requiring-airplanes-have-5g-safeguards-by-early-2024-2023-01-09/?taid=63bc6d9c5e38900001a58aa6&amp;utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&amp;utm_medium=trueAnthem&amp;utm_source=twitter">Reuters</a> that such aircraft carriers would have to install 5G C-Band-tolerant radio altimeters or approved filters by next year amid concerns from the aerospace industry and the FAA that C-Band 5G — which relies on radio waves at 3.7 to 3.98 GHz — could interfere with flight safety technology such as radio altimeters that use a 4.2 to 4.4 GHz range.
Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen <a href="https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statements-5g">said</a> last year the agency believes it has identified a path for aviation and 5G C-band wireless to &#8220;safely co-exist.&#8221;
&#8220;[R]adio altimeters cannot be relied upon to perform their intended function if they experience interference from wireless broadband operations,&#8221; the FAA said, adding it would require &#8220;limitations prohibiting certain operations requiring radio altimeter data when in the presence of 5G C-Band interference.&#8221;
Aviation industry heads and 5G mobile carriers in the U.S. have been struggling to resolve the frequency overlap issue for years, which led to FAA officials blocking signals in temporary buffer zones last year at 50 different airports nationwide.
Airline leaders warned last year that a &#8220;catastrophic&#8221; aviation crisis could ground almost all traffic because of the 5G deployment.
Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) released a <a href="https://www.rtca.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SC-239-5G-Interference-Assessment-Report_274-20-PMC-2073_accepted_changes.pdf">report</a> in October 2020 that provided a clear indication &#8220;that the risk will be widespread and has the potential for broad impacts to aviation operations in the United States, including the possibility of catastrophic failures leading to multiple fatalities, in the absence of appropriate mitigations.&#8221;
Reports earlier this year showed that 5G service may have interfered with airplane altimeters height data and landing attempts in inclement weather, which disrupted some U.S. airports.
Airplane flight manuals could be subject to revision under another proposal from the FAA to prohibit low-visibility landings after June 30 unless the airplane crews have already retrofitted such components.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and others, said, according to Reuters, that &#8220;carriers are working diligently to ensure fleets are equipped with compliant radio altimeters, but global supply chains continue to lag behind current demand. Any government deadline must consider this reality.&#8221;
According to the <a href="https://www.faa.gov/5g">FAA</a>, approximately 90% of aircraft accessing U.S. major airports have either updated their altimeters or received verification to fly amid the 5G C-band signal.
Wireless communications group CTIA told Reuters that &#8220;the FAA&#8217;s schedule for altimeter updates is reasonable and practical. 5G in the C-band co-exists safely with air traffic.&#8221;
CNET <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/faa-wants-us-airplanes-to-be-5g-safe-by-2024/">reported</a> officials would open the directive for public comments for 30 days after posting it in the Federal Register.
The proposed directive would take effect in February 2024.
FAA officials proposed a similar directive in December 2021, which banned passenger and cargo flight operations near 5G C-Band wireless transmitters unless approved by the agency.

US-AVIATION-TELECOMMUNICATION

FAA Proposes 5G-Safe For All U.S. Aircraft Carriers By 2024

Air Travel

airplanes

Mary Jane Copps is raking in thousands of dollars for teaching Generation Z-ers — who have spent most of their lives only using texts — to have actual conversations via telephone.
Business Insider published a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/woman-charges-480-hour-gen-z-workers-overcome-phone-fear-2022-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> Monday on Copps — who has dubbed herself &#8220;The Phone Lady&#8221; — revealing that she charges up to $480 per hour for private lessons in phone etiquette for those who either don&#8217;t understand how to use a phone in the workplace or who have a phobia around doing so.
VeryWellMind <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/afraid-making-phone-calls-tips-3024317" target="_blank" rel="noopener">defines</a> Phone Anxiety as &#8220;the fear of making or answering phone calls (also known as telephobia)&#8221; and notes that it &#8220;is a common fear among those with social anxiety disorder (SAD).&#8221; Emotional symptoms of Phone Anxiety include: &#8220;Avoiding making calls or having others call you, delaying making or answering phone calls, obsessing about what was said after calls, stressing about embarrassing yourself, worrying about bothering the other person, and worrying about what you will say.&#8221;
Copps told Insider that she had seen the rise of what she referred to as &#8220;phone phobia&#8221; — which coincided with the rise of smartphone usage and text/chat features coupled with the gradual death of the traditional home telephone. A recent Fox News <a href="https://www.fox9.com/video/1159341" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> explored the rise of phone phobia, especially among younger generations.
&#8220;Gen Z have never had the skills given to them. In my generation, the phone was on the wall in everyone&#8217;s house, and we were taught to answer it and make calls at a young age,&#8221; Copps told Insider. &#8220;Now we have several generations that were never taught anything about talking on the phone, and people have removed phones from their homes.&#8221;
But phones are still part of the job in many workplaces — whether they be retail stores, restaurants, or offices — and prospective employees who don&#8217;t have previous experience carrying on a telephone conversation may find themselves feeling anxious when the situation arises at work.
Copps said that her consultancy was designed to ease that anxiety and give clients the skills and confidence to answer phones effectively and with less stress. Toward that end, she charges up to $480 an hour for individual coaching and $365 for 30-minute webinars. Her program also includes corporate workshops, for which she charges $3,500 daily.

Businesswoman tangled up in telephone cord

Woman Rakes In The Dough Teaching Scared Gen-Z-ers How To Actually Talk On Phones

Anxiety

Generation Z

Millennials

Podcast giant <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-rogan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Rogan</a> used his show this week to shine a light on some of the horrifying slave conditions that are used to mine the raw materials used to make electric car batteries and batteries for other devices like cell phones and laptops.
Rogan brought on activist Siddharth Kara to talk about what happens at these mines in Africa, specifically in the Congo.
&#8220;Throughout the whole history of slavery, I mean, going back centuries, never, never in human history, has there been more suffering that generated more profit, and was linked to the lives of more people around the world, ever, ever in history than what&#8217;s happening in the Congo right now,&#8221; Kara said. &#8220;And the reason I say that is this: the cobalt that&#8217;s being mined in the Congo is in every single lithium ion rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today, every smartphone, every tablet, every laptop, and crucially, every electric vehicle.&#8221;
Kara noted that mining conditions in the country are so bad that people are forced at gunpoint to dig for these materials by hand.
&#8220;Cobalt really took off about 10-12 years ago,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And it&#8217;s in another part of the country in the mining provinces in the southeast of the Congo. And cobalt took off because it started to be used in lithium ion batteries to maximize their charge and stability. And it just so happens that the Congo, just as it was sitting on more than half the world&#8217;s reserves of coltan and of course, a lot of gold and diamonds and other things, is sitting on more cobalt than the rest of the planet combined. And it&#8217;s in a small little patch of the Congo, southeastern corner — a part that used to be called Katanga, and before anybody knew what was happening, Chinese government, Chinese mining companies took control of almost all the big mines, and the local population has been displaced, is under duress, and they dig in absolutely subhuman, gut-wrenching conditions for $1 a day, feeding cobalt up the supply chain into all the phones, all the tablets, and especially electric cars.&#8221;
WATCH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piXwDW36jBQ
TRANSCRIPTS:
<blockquote>SIDDHARTH KARA, ACTIVIST: We can dig into this in more depth. Throughout the whole history of slavery, I mean, going back centuries, never, never in human history, has there been more suffering that generated more profit, and was linked to the lives of more people around the world, ever, ever in history than what&#8217;s happening in the Congo right now. And the reason I say that is this: the cobalt that&#8217;s being mined in the Congo is in every single lithium ion rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today, every smartphone, every tablet, every laptop, and crucially, every electric vehicle. So you and I, we can&#8217;t function on a day-to-day basis without cobalt, and three fourths of the supply is coming out of the Congo. And it&#8217;s being mined in appalling, heart-wrenching, dangerous conditions. And so that&#8217;s why people need to know because by and large, the world doesn&#8217;t know what&#8217;s happening in the Congo.
JOE ROGAN, HOST: It&#8217;s something that people sort of know, peripherally, that, you know, they call them conflict minerals. And, you know, they know that they&#8217;re coming from an area of the world that&#8217;s very poor, but I don&#8217;t think people are aware of how horrible it is. There has been, have been some documentaries that have been done, and they&#8217;re all terrifying.
KARA: Yeah. So. So, conflict minerals was phase one. And that&#8217;s actually not cobalt.
ROGAN: What does it refer to, conflict minerals?
KARA: So, conflict minerals, also called the 3TG minerals are tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold. And those are in the eastern Congo. And that catastrophe started around the year 2000, late 1990s, 2000, shortly after the Rwandan genocide. The militias moved in and Eastern Congo is sitting on some of the largest reserves in the world of those 3TG minerals, especially tantalum. And those are all used in microprocessors. And you can think back to, you know, around the year 2000. Mobile phones first started coming out and gaining traction. I still remember my little StarTAC flip phone that I had from Motorola, you remember that? And all that supply was coming out of Eastern Congo, militias and warlords were forcing the local population at gunpoint, machete point, to dig this stuff out. And it was flowing up into the formal supply chain into mostly those first generation cell phones. And that became known as conflict minerals. Cobalt started later. Cobalt really took off about 10-12 years ago. And it&#8217;s in another part of the country in the mining provinces in the southeast of the Congo. And cobalt took off because it started to be used in lithium ion batteries to maximize their charge and stability. And it just so happens that the Congo, just as it was sitting on more than half the world&#8217;s reserves of coltan and of course, a lot of gold and diamonds and other things, is sitting on more cobalt than the rest of the planet combined. And it&#8217;s in a small little patch of the Congo, southeastern corner — a part that used to be called Katanga, and before anybody knew what was happening, Chinese government, Chinese mining companies took control of almost all the big mines, and the local population has been displaced, is under duress, and they dig in absolutely subhuman, gut-wrenching conditions for $1 a day, feeding cobalt up the supply chain into all the phones, all the tablets, and especially electric cars.
ROGAN: And we&#8217;re looking at a video now. Jamie, is this the mines? 
JAMIE: It&#8217;s his video. 
ROGAN: This is so crazy to see. 
KARA: This is the bottom of the supply chain of your iPhone, of your Tesla, of your Samsung. I mean, I&#8217;m just naming those companies, it&#8217;s all of them, right? All of them. We&#8217;re not just picking on them. And here&#8217;s what you need to know, Joe, about this video. I was the first outsider to get into this mine. And that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s just a really short video that I was able to take. This is an industrial cobalt mine, where there&#8217;s not supposed to be one artisanal miner. Now, that&#8217;s the term use for people who are just digging by hand as opposed to tractors and excavators. There is not supposed to be one here. That&#8217;s what the story is told at the top of the chain. This mine, and I can name it, it’s called Shibaura, there is not supposed to be one artisanal miner here, according to the consumer-facing tech companies and EV companies buying this cobalt. Low and behold, I walk into this place, and this is what I see. There&#8217;s more than 15,000 human beings crammed into that pit, digging by hand. And if you have sound, you hear the mallets, you hear the shouting, you hear the the grunts, it&#8217;s a mass of humanity, you might expect to see a scene like this.
ROGAN: So, there&#8217;s a term that gets used, “clean cobalt”?
KARA: There&#8217;s no clean cobalt.
ROGAN: It&#8217;s not real? 
KARA: No, no, it&#8217;s all marketing. It&#8217;s all PR, it&#8217;s a fiction, just like that place. There&#8217;s not supposed to be any artisanal mining there. It&#8217;s all done industrially. That&#8217;s the story told at the top of the chain. And people assume, people I mean, the marketing teams at big tech and EV companies, assume, well, who&#8217;s gonna go down there and actually walk into the place and grab a video that shows no, it&#8217;s actually all raw human force that is clanking that cobalt out of the ground? So there&#8217;s no clean cobalt. There&#8217;s not a single company on planet Earth that makes a device that has a rechargeable battery in it that can reliably and justifiably claim that their cobalt isn&#8217;t coming from sources like that. And that&#8217;s the truth that needs to get out there. That&#8217;s the truth people need to understand. Because this is a story that goes back generations. There&#8217;s these fictions told at the top of the chain about what conditions are like at the bottom. And truth seekers have to go find that truth and enlighten civilization so that people, people get agitated about it, and want to do something about it. So there&#8217;s no clean cobalt, let&#8217;s just make that totally, abundantly clear. And anyone that claims otherwise is either peddling in falsehoods or is recklessly ignorant of the truth.
ROGAN: Are there any industrialized cobalt mines that use machinery and don&#8217;t use slavery and don&#8217;t use child labor and don&#8217;t use these people that live in unimaginable poverty?
KARA: I&#8217;ve never seen one. And I&#8217;ve been to almost all the major industrial cobalt mines. Here&#8217;s why I say that. Number one, they all, or almost all, will have scenes like that on them. Thousands of individuals clanking away for $1 or two $2 a day, okay? They don&#8217;t have safety equipment. All that stuff, cobalt is toxic, toxic to breathe. They&#8217;re breathing it in all day.
ROGAN: No masks, no filtration systems?
KARA: No masks, no gloves, no — half those guys are in flip flops, all right? So almost all the industrial minds will have scenes like that.</blockquote>
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