North Carolina School Removes Mirrors To Stop Students From Filming TikToks
Teachers all around the world know how frustrating it can be when their students are distracted by their phones in class. In an effort to combat this frustration, a North Carolina middle school has decided to remove its bathroom mirrors to prevent students from recording TikToks.
Southern Alamance Middle School in Graham, North Carolina announced last week that the mirrors would be removed from all student bathrooms to cut down on distractions. The reasoning behind this unorthodox decision was due to the overwhelming number of students using the mirrors to make TikTok videos during class hours.
According to WFMY, the average number of bathroom trips students would make recently shot up from three to four times a day, to eight and even nine times. And the online history of the students shows them very blatantly spending their time in the bathroom recording TikTok videos instead of, y’know, doing normal bathroom stuff.
With the social media app playing such a huge role in distracting students, the school system decided it was time for action.
In an interview with WFMY, the school system’s public relations officer Les Atkins (no relation) noted that the removal of bathroom mirrors was already helping them in their battle against social media in the classroom.
“(There’s) not as many visits to the bathroom, (they’re) not staying as long, and students are held accountable,” says Atkins, “and when there’s accountability, you see a great difference.”
This is all in an effort to teach students what the school calls “digital citizenship”, which is a fancy way of saying, “save the dance moves for your own bathroom mirror. You’re here to learn, not to CitiRokk.”
The decision may seem drastic to some, but I think the school is actually doing these students a favor. I shudder to think of the cringy stuff my middle school self would’ve been posting had TikTok been a thing back then. I promise you the whole world did NOT need to see 12-year-old KC’s awkward pubescent limbs trying to crank that Soulja Boy.
