Pinterest is pushing teens to close the app and pause notifications at school: ‘Stay in the moment’
Pinterest is getting on board with the movement to get kids off their phones.
The social-media platform is testing a new pop-up displayed to minors in the U.S. and Canada during school hours, encouraging them to close the app until the bell rings.
“Focus is a beautiful thing,” the prompt reads, according to The Verge. “Stay in the moment by putting Pinterest down and pausing notifs until the school bell rings.”
Only those aged 13 to 17 will get the pop-up notification, and only between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Pinterest said the large-scale test will reach “millions” of users in the age group — and the company claims to be the first tech company to test a “proactive” feature of the sort to help school-aged students focus on their education.
“At Pinterest, we believe that schools can take advantage of all that technology has to offer students, while minimizing the harms and distractions,” said Wanji Walcott, Pinterest’s chief legal and business affairs officer, per The Verge.
“Tech companies need to work together with teachers, parents and policymakers to build solutions that ensure [that] in the hands of our students, smartphones are tools, not distractions.”
New York State is close to enacting a bell-to-bell phone ban in schools, restricting kids’ phone use during the day, while many other states already have similar policies in place, either limiting or prohibiting phone use in schools.
Pinterest CEO Bill Ready previously shared his support for phone-free school policies and the Kids Online Safety Act.
The company also announced that it will grant $1 million to the nonprofit International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) to “support school leaders in creating a healthy digital culture in their schools.”
The grant will fund task forces in 12 school districts across the country to develop policies that “improve students’ digital wellbeing.”
