Is the school year looking a bit different this year? .
Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have signed or already enacted policies restricting cellphone use in K-12 schools.
Some states have at least partially banned cellphones in the classroom while others are leaving those decisions to their local education agencies.
Kids Discover had a chance to talk to Jessica Grose, Opinion writer for The New York Times, about her recent piece, Opinion | The Unexpected Upside of Phone Bans in Schools – The New York Times where she explores the policy to remove phones from the school day.
“It’s a discussion to be had with kids,” says Grose. “We can encourage them to talk about how their phones are used. Don’t dismiss kids with the decision to take phones away. Listen to what they have to say.”
Grose reads and writes about topics like phone use and student development as a part of her job and she also has two young daughters who are navigating this social and academic dilemma at the same time.
“Obviously, my job requires me to read about all the statistics and studies that are out there,” says Grose. “Take the time to listen to what kids have to say about the “why” they want to have a phone and have an open conversation about how to use it.”
One of the points Grose’s piece talks about is how The Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky announced “a surprising unintended consequence of a new statewide cellphone ban.” In many of the district’s schools, the number of books checked out of the library had “skyrocketed” compared with the year before the ban was put in place.
In the first weeks of this academic year, schools have reported students checking out books from the library in record numbers.
There are times when the phone is used for schoolwork or research purposes, but the pull of social media posts, Instagram reels, TikTok, messaging apps and ongoing group chats are just a tap away during school hours.
What can happen with the extra found time when the phone isn’t distracting a student during the school day?
More books from the library and more conversation.
CBS Sunday Morning recently aired “Banning cellphones in schools: Are the kids alright?” about a school in New York’s Long Island school district and how the students are responding to having phone-free school days.
A principal in the interview talked about the energy in the cafeteria with students sitting at tables with no phones to pull their focus.
“You go into the cafeteria now, it’s maybe twice as loud as it used to be – I’m not even exaggerating,” he said. “More kids are talking to each other.”
Grose wraps up her opinion piece by talking about replacing habits, like doom scrolling on phones, with pleasurable activities like reading for pleasure.
“It turns out that when kids aren’t allowed to doom scroll or rot their brains on TikTok during lunch hour or in study hall, they get bored enough to go to the library and check out books. If there are eight full hours, five days a week, during which students can’t look at their phones, they may also discover that they enjoy reading for pleasure, a pastime that too many teenagers have abandoned.”
“Don’t dismiss kids with the decision to take phones away. Listen to what they have to say,” says Grose.
“Nothing is all good or all bad. We’ll get there.”
