Why are there smartphone bans in schools in the US states and school districts?
Numerous international specialists claim that smartphones are harmful to kids' mental health, but does outlawing them really help?
The use of smartphones in public schools is being restricted by Los Angeles and other school districts, states, and towns in the United States. This move comes amid a discussion about the impact of social media and technology on kids and young generation.
This month, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board is responsible for nearly 1,000 schools, approved a resolution to establish a policy to ban student usage of cellphones and social media platforms within 120 days. However, the policy itself wouldn't be put into effect until 2025. 2019 saw the passage of legislation in California that gives school districts the authority to limit smartphone use in the classroom, save in cases of emergency.
On June 19, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared, "Children and teens should be attentive on their studies, not their phone screen ." US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy demanded this week that social media networks include warning labels akin to the health advisories found on cigarette and alcohol products.
Social media use among teenagers is linked to serious negative effects on their mental health. Parents and teenagers would be reminded on a regular basis that social media is not safe by a surgeon general's warning label, which would need congressional legislation.
In which other US schools have smartphone bans in place?
The use of cellphones in public schools is already subject to state-wide limitations in the states of Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Florida. In March, Governor Eric Holcomb signed Indiana Senate Bill 185 into law, prohibiting students from using electronic devices during class time. The law went into effect on July 1.
In an effort to lessen distractions, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 250 last month, mandating school districts to restrict smartphone use in the classroom. The bill lets local school administrators design their own policies regarding smartphone bans. Emergency situations involving health or medicine will be exempt.
We will restore the chance for children in Ohio to fully engage in their coursework, gain knowledge from their educators, and make enduring memories with their nearest companions by reducing these outside distractions, DeWine said in a statement.
The Oklahoma Senate Appropriations Committee made the decision to implement a restriction in February that will limit the use of smartphones in classrooms. Students are prohibited from using smartphones on public school grounds by Senate Bill 1314.
"It's crucial that youngsters act like regular people, just like they did before social media. Following the passage of a bill prohibiting the use of cellphones and other wireless devices in classrooms during instructional hours, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stated in May of last year that "the social media create more problems than it solution and I think it causes more harm than good." Like the smartphone ban in Ohio, individual school districts will have discretion over how to carry it out.
At the time, DeSantis said, "Let's have our education system have to be traditional education system as much as we can." In addition, the Florida law mandates that social media ability to be read and write taught in schools and prohibits pupils from using Wi-Fi. While Michigan does not have a nationwide ban on smartphones, several school districts have made it illegal to use them in the classroom. The Flint Board of Education instituted a phone ban in January for both school buses and buildings.
In an effort to safeguard the mental health of youth, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced this month that she plans to give a chase to a comprehensive ban on phones in schools starting in 2025. After enforcing a ban in the past, New York City lifted it in 2015, letting schools make their own decisions. The chancellor of New York City Public Schools, David Banks, said in a recent interview with a local television station that "kids are fully addicted to phones now; they're not just a distraction." We intend to outlaw cell phone use in classrooms.
Why is there an issue with smartphones in schools?
According to a Pew Research poll from November of last year, close three-quarters of US high school teachers believe smartphones are a significant source of distraction in the classroom. Teachers in high schools are particularly prone to see cellphones negatively. According to the Pew survey, about seven out of ten (72 percent) instructors feel that pupils being distracted by cellphones is a serious issue in their classrooms, compared to 33% teachers of middle school and 6% of elementary school teachers.
Oklahoma State Representative Chad Caldwell, the proponent of the state's measure outlawing smartphones in schools, stated, "If you talk to safety experts, they will tell you that it's actually better for the children if they are not all students on their cellphones or social medias."
What say specialists in the field of child mental health?
According to some analysts, administrators and medical professionals began to notice a shift in the mental balance of youth about the same time that smartphone use began to increase in the early 2010s.
However, we believe that the main cause of the abrupt shift that occurred around that time was the teens' quick transition from offline to online social life via smartphones and social media.
The usage of smartphones and deteriorating mental health are strongly correlated, according to research by Jonathan Haidt. The educators and administrators I talked to didn't think this was just a coincidence. They observed definite connections between the rise in phone addiction and the deterioration of mental health, not to mention the decline in scholastic achievement, Haidt said on his Substack blog, After Babel.
Throughout our chats, I noticed a recurring theme: we all detest phones. Keeping pupils away from them in class was a never-ending battle. It was more difficult to capture pupils' attention since they appeared to be naturally distracted and perpetually preoccupied.
Is it effective to forbid smartphones in schools?
There hasn't been much research on this, and a lot of specialists contend that the evidence is conflicting on how these bans are working. A "scoping review" of global data, both published and unpublished, supporting and opposing the outlawing of cell phones in schools was conducted by Elizabeth Edwards, an associate professor of education at the University of Queensland, Australia, and Marilyn Campbell, an instructor of young children and general learning in the Faculty of Education at Queensland University of Technology. The results were released in March.
A scoping examination is conducted on a subject with a dearth of research studies. The review included 1,317 papers and articles, including master's and doctoral student dissertations, that were published between May 2023 and 2007, the year that the smartphone was initially marketed. They also found 22 studies that looked at schools both beforehand and following phone bans. Bermuda, China, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Malawi, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States were all included in the study.
So, is it wise to forbid cell phones in classrooms?
Divergent views exist on how best to handle the effects of social media and smartphones. Some argue that banning smartphones completely won't solve the issue because they are essential communication tools in classrooms. Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union in the US, told Al Jazeera, "I don't think bans solve the thing that we're trying to overcome, which is attempting to get our children to understand when it's acceptable to use phones and when it's not."
But Daisy Greenwell, co-owner of the UK-based parent-led charity Smartphone Free Childhood, which advocates for children's responsible smartphone use, stated she supports restrictions on smartphone use. "We believe that Big Tech is encroaching on childhood in a manner that we, as a community, haven't discussed enough," Greenwell said to Al Jazeera. "Teachers tell us that the social issues and issues related to smartphones among students are the biggest problems they face in the classroom."
