When Republican Governors Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Democrat Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Kathy Hochul of New York all agree on an education reform, the idea must be either very right or very wrong. As a longtime social scientist and former middle and high school teacher, I believe their support for severely restricting or banning smartphones in schools is long overdue, justified by practical experience, social science and recent successes.
On practical experience, for years, I’ve heard educators grouse about how cellphones make kids distracted, sleepless, depressed and even less ethical. I know of a legendary math teacher who banned cellphones in her classes, though without support from her principal the classroom ban was tough to enforce. This teacher is not alone.
A Pew Research Center report from June found 72% of high school teachers believe cellphones are a major problem in school. The National Education Association, the largest teacher union in the United States, recently surveyed its members and found nine in 10 supported a policy banning cellphones in the classroom. A recent report also found that most parents oppose phones in the classroom.
Recent social science suggests these teachers and parents are perceptive. NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recently published book, “The Anxious Generation,” presents a wide range of data from dozens of studies indicating that the introduction of smartphone-based social media reversed decades of stable or improving teen mental health, increasing depression among girls and social disconnection among boys.
Smartphone apps are such powerful attention magnets that half teens say they use them “almost constantly,” with adolescent girls who face social pressures particularly likely to stay engaged online to keep up with trends. One teen recently described it as “a trap,” continuing to explain that “if you do escape, you’re classed as a weirdo, and you’ll fall behind on trends, you won’t understand what people are talking about.” Combine that with pernicious yet seemingly unavoidable comparisons with peers’ appearances or the amount of fun they seem to be having.
Key to Haidt’s argument is that time spent on smartphones replaces the in-person relationships we evolved with, exchanging a small number of strong, stable relationships in families and communities such as schools and workplaces with a far larger number of unpredictable, fragile, highly individualized and sometimes abusive online relationships.
A report released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights disastrous trends in adolescent mental health. The number of young adults who reported experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 50% between 2011 and 2021. Three in 10 adolescents report experiencing poor mental health, and one in five seriously contemplated suicide. For each of these metrics, the rate of females reporting poor mental health was approximately twice that of their male peers.
While much of the news is bad, there is reason for hope. Schools that have been early adopters of policies banning cellphones in schools have experienced promising results. A charter school leader in Gary, Indiana, recently shared his experience with this. At first, the school simply insisted that cellphones not be used in the classroom but allowed them in other parts of the school — and this was unsuccessful. The same dramas associated with social media posts and online worlds remained intact.
After soliciting input from key stakeholder groups, including parents, students, teachers and faculty, and announcing the policy weeks before implementation, the school banned phones during the school day altogether. Students surrendered devices during morning advisory and were placed in a lockbox until retrieved at the end of the day. Consequences for not complying were severe — including Saturday detention for a first offense, out-of-school suspension for a second offense and up to expulsion for a third offense. The results have been positive, with students more engaged in learning with fewer disruptions.
Similar results are reported from charter schools in New York City. A school leader in the city I recently spoke with shared that his students initially disliked the policy, but within weeks, you could see and feel a difference in the school’s academics and culture. Similar results were found at KIPP NYC College Prep High School, where student grades returned to pre-pandemic levels, AP test scores increased, student focus improved and even attendance at sporting events and other after-hours activities increased 50%.
Marietta City Schools of Georgia has adopted a policy for the new school year that will require students to put their phones and smartwatches in pouches that lock until the last five minutes of the school day. DeKalb County School District is piloting a similar program this year as well.
Though it is too early for results from formal evaluations of these initiatives, I have every reason to believe that these efforts will succeed. Given our youth’s academic, social, emotional, and mental health trendlines over the past decade, it’s at least worth a try.
David T. Marshall is an associate professor of educational research in the College of Education at Auburn University. He served two terms as chair of the Alabama Public Charter School Commission and formerly taught middle and high school social studies in Philadelphia.
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