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School phone bans are becoming more and more important in light of the issue of mental health.
Benefits mentioned by educators and administrators include learning and improved mental health.
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| School phone bans are becoming more and more important in light of the issue of mental health. |
As more states attempt to prevent children from having access to their phones from "bell to bell" or during the school day, student cellphone bans are swiftly rising to the top of the back-to-school conversation.
Following the signing of an executive order by Governor Glenn Youngking in July to address "the alarming mental health crisis and chronic health conditions affecting adolescents," Virginia is among the latest states to consider a cellphone ban. The second-largest school district in the country, Los Angeles, has voted to outlaw social media and mobile phone use for over 420,000 K–12 students by the spring semester of the 2024–2025 academic year, demonstrating the trend in California.
The decision was made in light of the ongoing dispute among parents about whether or not to give their children cellphones in the first place. Author of "The Anxious Generation" and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, for example, contends that rather than helping children, cellphone use is actually hurting them.
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| School phone bans are becoming more and more important in light of the issue of mental health. |
According to scientific studies, children and teenagers who use phones and social media more frequently are more likely to experience psychological effects and mental health problems. As a result, the US surgeon general has called for health warnings for younger users on social media platforms. A study conducted on children aged five and younger in March 2024 and published in JAMA Network Open also discovered that a just one-hour increase in screen use, from one to two hours or more, was associated with lower psychological well-being scores.
a renewed emphasis on mobile phones
Since the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 caused more remote learning, school personnel and teachers report that in the last four years, children have become more accustomed to using phones and computers, and this increase in screen time has continued.
The new movement to ban phones in classrooms stems from the observation made by educators and school administrators that pupils are more likely to become distracted when they use social media and telephones excessively during the day.
When the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to outlaw phones in June, high school math teacher Jessica Quindell called the effort to get kids off their phones a "uphill battle."
"As a classroom instructor, controlling students' smartphone use is becoming more akin to an endless marathon. It's very difficult to keep up and requires a lot of energy," Quindell remarked.
Most schools currently have some sort of cellphone policy in place. 76% of public elementary and secondary schools surveyed by the National Center for Education Statistics said they forbade students from using cellphones for purposes other than academics during school hours. Notably, more younger students in elementary and middle schools than high school students are affected by these bans.
Following in the footsteps of Florida, which became the first state in 2023 to forbid smartphones in public school classrooms, and Indiana, whose school cellphone ban began on July 1, at least eight states are currently contemplating legislation to do away with phones in schools.
Still, some people disagree with the idea of outright prohibiting student smartphone use.
Another math teacher in a high school took to TikTok to express their disagreement with denying kids access to their phones, primarily citing concerns about safety.
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| School phone bans are becoming more and more important in light of the issue of mental health. |
"As teachers, we have absolutely no right to deny students the ability to communicate with their family at any time," they stated. "And cellphones are the mechanism in which that happens for the vast majority of people."
Phone bans being enforced
There has been a no-cell phone ban in place in Clovis Unified School District (which serves over 43,000 pupils in California) for more than ten years. Nevertheless, over time, different schools and teachers have been responsible for implementing it in quite different ways. Instructors have been forced to inform students of the district policy and, if needed, devise their own strategies for enforcing it, such as posting signs or requesting students to put their phones in their lockers or bags.
"Post-COVID, as we were seeing a rise in the dependence of our kids on their mobile devices … we really returned to that policy and said, 'We need to be better at enforcing it and being consistent in our expectation across all of our schools," Kelly Avant's, Clovis' chief communications officer, told "Good Morning America."
According to Avant's, some educators and parents support the push for a more widespread phone ban because they believe that when a policy shifts as a whole rather than being a one-off request, there is strength in numbers.
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| School phone bans are becoming more and more important in light of the issue of mental health. |
"For parents -- and I've heard from some staff members -- being able to tell a student, 'It's not just you, it's an entire district,' helps," Avant's added. "Some parents have said, 'When I'm the only one saying this, it's really hard to have my child not feel isolated from others but when I know that it's something that's happening across all of the schools in your district, it's really freeing for my child.'"
Experts like Haidt claim to have heard similar sentiments from specific parents.
Back in March, Haidt noted in an interview with "GMA" that, for individual parents, preventing their child from using a smartphone or going on social media can feel like an attempt to "hold back the tide."
"We're having trouble because we don't want to be the only one who doesn't give our kid a phone," he stated at the time.
A representative for the U.S. government of Education told "GMA" that while the government will provide "resources for school districts on the use of personal devices in schools," it will still rely on regional experts in the field of education to develop local policies governing students' cellphone use.
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