The world of technology and education in the UK is fraught with contradictions and assumptions that both demonise and exploit young people. On the one side, the DfE school standards minister Nick Gibb is claiming that ‘schools should ban their pupils from bringing smartphones into school or the classroom’, implying that teens are unable to regulate their behaviour and should therefore be punished. From another side, the DfE is taking advantage of the reach of social media, using Snapchat to advertise undersubscribed GCSEs to teens.