Recently, a new type of mobile phone has become popular among junior and senior high school students in some places. From the outside, this phone appears to be no different from an ordinary student meal card. If not carefully identified, even if students bring it into the classroom and even watch videos or play games, teachers find it hard to spot anything unusual. This "meal card phone" is modified from an old phone: after removing the phone screen, the inner and outer screens are separated by heating, the polarizing layer on the inner screen is removed, and the core components are then placed into a meal card sleeve. This disguised phone is highly concealed; once the polarizing layer is removed, the screen looks like a blank white board to outsiders, and only with special glasses can the phone content be seen.

　　The "meal card phone" is in fact nothing new, still less a high-tech product. It is simply a black-and-gray-market product through which some unscrupulous merchants, having spotted a business opportunity, make improper profits from students who want to play with phones but face supervision from schools and parents. Although it wears the outer shell of a meal card sleeve, its core is still a phone, so to correct the "meal card phone" problem, the fundamental task is still to properly address how students should use phones correctly. If students cannot treat and use phones properly, even if "meal card phones" are banned, new variants such as "school badge phones" and "stationery phones" may still breed.

　　The reason "meal card phones" can run rampant is, on the one hand, that some students are infatuated with and addicted to phones and, after schools and parents strictly control ordinary phones, settle for the next best thing; on the other hand, some unscrupulous merchants either provide tutorials for "radically modifying" phones or directly sell already-modified "meal card phones" to make improper profits. Therefore, in correcting "meal card phones," it is necessary to prescribe the right remedy and treat both inside and outside, so as to achieve the effect of addressing both symptoms and root causes.

　　First, it must be made clear that inciting students to modify and make or directly selling "meal card phones" is suspected of being illegal and non-compliant. The Notice on Strengthening the Management of Mobile Phones for Primary and Secondary School Students issued by the Ministry of Education also states that schools should inform students and parents that, in principle, personal mobile phones must not be brought onto campus. Students buy "meal card phones" to evade relevant management, and merchants who make and sell "meal card phones" obviously play the unglamorous role of aiding wrongdoing. For the making and selling of "meal card phones," market regulation, industry and information technology and other departments need to investigate and punish seriously, while e-commerce platforms must fulfill their primary supervisory responsibilities, promptly clean up and delete relevant product information, and social media must also block relevant tutorials to prevent them from poisoning more minors.

　　Banning the making, selling and circulation of "meal card phones" only addresses the external cause and treats the symptoms; the more critical task is to guide students to treat and use phones correctly. As "natives" of the mobile phone era, it is unrealistic to keep young people completely insulated from phones; they also have needs to use phones, and merely blocking them may instead provoke rebelliousness and even push them into the arms of variant products such as "meal card phones."

　　While strictly prohibiting phones on campus, parents can in fact appropriately let students use phones after class to meet their needs, though they should have corresponding plans and management for browsing content and usage duration. In ordinary times, schools and parents should frequently provide education and guidance, informing students of the harms of phone addiction and its impact on study, so that they form a correct understanding of reasonable and moderate phone use. At the same time, it should also be recognized that the way to solve the problem of phone addiction always lies outside the phone: students should be helped to form rich and colorful interests and hobbies, especially various cultural and sports activities. When their attention and energy after class have healthier outlets for release and they are immersed in a broad world, jumping, running and singing, they will naturally move away from the tiny space of a phone.

　　Students use "meal card phones" to match wits with schools and parents. What we need to do, besides drawing the sword to cut off the black industrial chain, is also to take into account their actual needs and growth characteristics, achieving a combination of guidance and blocking so as to address both symptoms and root causes.