The Real Reason Cell Phones were Banned in School

It's not what you think. It's a 50-year-old odyssey of technology and drugs

Before my son 
leaves for school every day,
he checks his phone is charged,
then hides it away.

--Michelle Kassorla

Come with me for a moment on a time warp. It’s the late 1980s, and the schools are inundated with a new technology that is a threat to every student: pagers.

I know that most of you are too young to remember pagers (popularly known as “beepers”), but in a world where cellular technology had not developed, there were mini FM radiofrequency devices you could wear on your hip that would let you know if you had an urgent call.

According to an article on ThoughtCo, “The device, about half the size of a deck of cards, contained a small receiver that delivered a radio message individually to those also carrying a pager” (ThoughtCo). At first, they were one-way communication, and all one had to do to get in touch with another person was call the pager number, and the pager on their hip would beep to let them know they had a message.

According to “The Pager: a 100-year History in Brief,”

Over the course of the 1970s, Motorola released a number of increasingly sophisticated devices, including: single tone, multi-tone and voice enabled systems. As these developments were released, pagers became increasingly entrenched in the medical field and found an audience which required reliable, critical communication capabilities. (CommonTime)

This was an amazing technology, as you could be contacted at any time, not just when you were in your office or at home. Pagers, like any technology, were expensive at first. They were a status symbol of a professional class that needed to be in contact at all times (ThoughtCo). In the 1980s, pagers became even more popular as “wide area paging” was invented, allowing pagers to work globally (Torres).

As pagers evolved, you could even look at the pager to see what number had called you and play back a short message. The convenience and status of pagers insured that they were a big hit with every demographic. In an August 15, 1983 article in the New York Magazine, Benice Kanner writes, “You figured that beeper blaring in the theater belonged to a doctor on an emergency call, right? Truth is it could just as easily have been signaling a plumber, a computer repairman, or even, of all people, a call girl” (Kanner).

Unfortunately, this communication revolution soon became synonimous with drug dealing. Drug cartels quickly understood the significance of using a private communication device that could quickly and easily broadcast important news—from supply-chain issues to alerts about the police. This was a challenge to pager companies that wanted to protect their business model but had to legally allow equal access to the technology. In a Time Magazine article from October 6, 1986, entitled “Street Smart: Drug Dealers Turn on to Beepers,” paging company salespeople were on the front lines of this new technology war:

Dealers sometimes use fronts to sign with a paging service to thwart easy tracing. But not always: "We do get some strange or spooky clients in here," says one Miami beeper salesman. "I've never seen so many people who didn't have driver's licenses, even though I just saw them drive up in a Mercedes" (Time).

In a Washington Post article from July 11, 1988, “Message is Out on Beepers,” Pager company executives and small business owners discuss the problem of keeping pagers out of the hands of drug dealers:

About 6.5 million beepers are in use in the country, according to officials, although it is difficult to estimate what percentage is used for drug trafficking. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials said that beepers, which have been used by bookies and cigarette smugglers, were introduced in the drug market about five years ago by Colombian cocaine organizations. Now, federal narcotics agents estimate that at least 90 percent of drug dealers use them. (Moses)

Although legitimate use of pagers was common—from repairmen and executives to expectant fathers—pager use became tainted by the association it had with with drug dealing, especially for kids. Many well-healed and well-meaning parents gave them to their schoolkids, asking their children to use them to message about their whereabouts—but this innocent use came to an end as the association between pagers and drug dealing became cemented in the minds of the public and school districts. Pagers were villified in schools across the country, and school districts and state legislatures worked quickly to ban them in schools.

According to a Chicago Tribune article from November 30,1988, pagers would be banned in all public and private schools in Chicago, and anyone carrying a pager into a school would be fined from $200 to $500. The article mentioned that pagers had been banned in Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Houston. ''If kids have beepers, it means they are dealing drugs,'' said Ald. William Beavers (7th), sponsor of the ordinance” (Kaplan).

By 1994, there were 61 million pagers in use, and by 1996, when Blackberry came up with an alphanumeric keyboard for their new two-way pager, the emerging cellular phone technology and the waning pager technology conflated into school district policies banning personal communication devices across the board. To school boards, principals, and teachers, cell phones = pagers, and pagers = drug dealing.

A good example of this is how Michigan’s state ban on pagers was expanded as a ban on “Personal Communication Devices,” then expanded to cell phones, according to a summary for Michigan House Bill 4991:

More specifically, Public Act 215 of 1988 (Senate Bill 822) prohibited school board members from adopting policies to allow students to carry either pocket pagers or electronic communication devices while in school, unless there were health or other exceptional reasons to do so. In 1995, the proscription was broadened when the legislature added "other personal communication devices" to the then seven-year old ban. The more comprehensive prohibition was adopted when Public Act 289 (more commonly called the Revised School Code) was enacted. The law also allows school officials to set penalties when the prohibition is violated by students. (Kuipers)

When cell phones became commonplace in the early 2000s, the tainted reputation of pagers bled over into tainting cell phones. Teachers and administrators who distrusted pagers continued to distrust cell phones, and, again, the innocent use of a significantly important personal communication device was on the receiving end of suspicion and scorn.

Even today, students in schools, both private and public, puzzle over why they can’t use their phones in school. After all, they are now a powerful little computer in their pocket. It makes sense for educators to harness the power of mobile phones. Students are adept at communication and entertainment with their phones, but they are strangely inept at using their phones for academic purposes.

I try, whenever possible, to force my college students to use their phones in research and reporting. I introduce them to quality apps that are useful for academic use—like iNaturalist, Google Earth, Quizlet, and Socrative. I ask them questions in class, then make fun of them when they refuse to look up the answer on their phones. Why aren’t our K-12 schools teaching these things—and some serious lessons in phone etiquette as well? Why are students allowed to use a computer in class but not a phone—when they are essentially the same thing?

The answer lies in the past, in the use of pagers by drug dealers and crooks, and in the fierce rejection of technology by our schools.

Now you know.

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Works Cited

CommonTime. “The Pager: A 100 Year History in Brief.” Medium, 3 July 2017, https://medium.com/@CommonTime/the-pager-a-100-year-history-in-brief-2d91bae11180.

Hey Gen Z, This Is a Pager, and in the ’90s They Were Everywhere | Mashable. https://mashable.com/article/pagers-explained-90s-week. Accessed 22 Dec. 2023.

Kanner, Bernice. “New York Magazine.” New York Magazine, 15 Aug. 1983, pp. 12–13.

Kaplan, Joel, and Robert Blau. “BEEPER BAN IN SCHOOLS URGED.” Chicago Tribune, 30 Nov. 1988, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-11-30-8802200778-story.html.

Kuipers, Wayne. “Cell Phone Policy, House Bill 4991 as Passed by the House.” House Fiscal Agency, 7 Mar. 2002, https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2001-2002/billanalysis/House/htm/2001-HLA-4991-b.htm.

Moses, Jonathan M. “MESSAGE IS OUT ON BEEPERS - The Washington Post.” The Washington Post, 11 July 1988, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/07/11/message-is-out-on-beepers/58840caa-523e-413b-9224-60ad94d7803f/.

“Pagers: Instant Contact Before the Age of Cellphones.” ThoughtCo, 30 Jan. 2021, https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-pagers-and-beepers-1992315.

Time. “Street Smart: Drug Dealers Turn on to Beepers.” Time Magazine, 6 Oct. 1986. content.time.com, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,962483,00.html.

Torres, Topaz. “Why Pagers Still Matter: The History of Pagers (1921-2021).” Spok Inc., 18 Nov. 2021, https://www.spok.com/blog/throwback-thursday-history-pagers/.