As someone who works at a middle school... I think if you want this to be widely adopted by schools, you will need to make the process much more streamlined and straightforward.
I think I am unusually well-equipped to understand and implement a study like this, for a middle school teacher. I was enthusiastic about the idea of doing a study like this. Looking at the details of your implementation guide, however, I think doing analysis on this data looks like a whole lot of work for people who already have demanding full-time jobs.
I think if you can provide digital forms for a school to get different stakeholders to fill out, and then provide them with digestible results, that would be a realistic ask. Or possibly the test administrator agrees to meet twice with the Stanford researchers, once beforehand to discuss implementation and once afterwards to discuss results?
I say this with abundant sympathy as a person who is frequently in the position of trying to get other people to do interesting and useful things and being told that they are too complicated.
Such a great insight. We've been developing a TAPS supporting center at Stanford Social Media Lab. The idea is that we will create qualtrics surveys, share them with schools, and send schools a brief report.
Love to hear if you have other ideas to make TAPS better serve schools.
I'll be talking with my 14,000-student school district about the Toolkit this week. We negotiated an "off and away all day" MOU for 2024-25, but high school principals complained that it was impossible to enforce and wanted to make lunch and passing time "exempt". All we (the educators) ask for in return were consequences like those described in the Phone Free Schools Movement Administrators Guide. The district was shocked that we brought such issues to the table and talks last June, to modify the MOU, broke down. So, we are starting the school year with the same MOU as last year. But, now that we know enforcement may not be happening, this may be a difficult year!
Sunny, you asked for an update, and I have one. We met with our school district counterparts to again try and strengthen an MOU about student cell phones during the school day. While my hopes were high at 8am this morning, by 10am they were dashed! High school principals wanted an exemption from enforcing "off-and-away" all day for the lunch period. They say they lack the manpower and there is an "equity" issue - advantaged kids can get in their cars, leave campus during lunch, and use cell phones. Poor kids don't have cars, so they reasoned. While I thought it was weak to claim they could not enforce during lunch (and I agree it can be very tough, but you and I know there is a solution to that problem!), we were willing to exempt lunch, but we wanted teeth in terms of three escalating consequences for students violating the "off-and-away" expectation during the entirety of the instructional period. I suggested the consequences described in the Phone-Free Schools Movement Administrator Toolkit.
After stating that Washington state law prohibits schools from developing or using prescribed consequences for specific infractions in favor of a more "holistic" and equitable approach to student discipline/compliance and that we have never listed student consequences in our Collective Bargaining Agreement (not accurate), the district claimed that they were uncomfortable with agreeing to what our option was and that more time (another meeting) was probably needed. After the district left, my team decided that we were going to send a letter stating that, in light of the statements from the district at two meetings (June & August), we believe that continuing with the MOU unaltered and in effect for the 2025-26 school year is the path forward. Now that high school principals didn't get what they claimed to have needed and may have difficulted enforcing "off-and-away", I anticipate we will be filling grievances when the MOU is violated. I don't really want to play this game, but they simply don't seem to understand how important it is too our kids that we handle cell phone policies wisely and be the adults are kids need us to be.
There are many details to this story, but that is the gist.
I am a bit disappointed in my employer, today. Should be an interesting year.
Thanks so much Ray for the update. I am really sorry about the frustrating experience. Phone policy is as complicated as , if not more complicated than, many other issues schools have been struggling for a long time. Hopefully, we can find some creative solutions that can support school districts and schools. Thanks again for updating and working hard for our students.
love this! i'm the creator of blok — a physical solution to digital distractions.
we're based in sf and are generating tens of thousands of blok sessions per month at this point, which is equivalent to preventing 20+ years of doomscrolling per month.
This is great! Yet…at some point people need to go after one of the larger problems for kids and adults as well: social media. It’s tobacco folks. The problem is few are willing to give it up. Their Facebook their Instagram is too precious. They’re Tik-Tok too much fun. Just my POV.
The above article admits TAPS "cannot fully control for confounding variables." That's the definition of understatement: it doesn't even try.
I'm going to keep repeating this until someone important finally pays attention: the Centers for Disease Control's analysis of the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey (the big one everyone cites) associated parental abuses, addiction, and mental problems with a staggering two-thirds of teens' depression, 84% of teen opiate abuse, and 89% of teens' suicide attempts. The CDC's companion analysis associated social media use with just about none of these problems. Authorities then chose to completely ignore what teens themselves told us in no uncertain terms were the biggest factors in their poor mental health. It's just those cellphones and social media, we insisted.
Now, the TAPS survey proposes yet again to completely ignore parental and family problems -- yes, these are uncomfortable issues for adults to face; yes, surveyors are reluctant to include them. The result is that TAPS is a narrow, sanitized instrument designed to maximize the chances of reaching a popular, politically pleasing result. We keep pretending youths and media and pop culture are the big problems while ignoring crucial factors driving social ills, then we wonder why nothing we do works and the United States continues, decade after decade, to be by far the highest-risk Western society for adults and teens alike.
Joe, that's such a good question. Kids always outsmart us. We will be conducting a co-design study with kids: ask them how to best handle situations like this, and how to make the policy implementation easier for teachers and schools.
At my school the kids keep their laptops at home for homework and use paper and pencils in class (we've got some ipad carts and computer labs that we sign out when there's some specific activity that needs computers). That tends to solve the problem if you're willing to take the plunge.
(I guess it doesn't solve the problem of passing notes! But that's a pretty old version of this problem).
The policies only work if they can’t be circumvented. My middle school niece tells me that all of the kids “don’t have phones” and “forgot them at home” in order to avoid turning them in.
Is it applicable to also measure the impact on mental health in families where clear phone rules in the family has been made alongside the school phone policy?
This is genius and generous providing educational institutions with an adaptable format! Congratulations on being change makers!
❤️
I like this idea!
As someone who works at a middle school... I think if you want this to be widely adopted by schools, you will need to make the process much more streamlined and straightforward.
I think I am unusually well-equipped to understand and implement a study like this, for a middle school teacher. I was enthusiastic about the idea of doing a study like this. Looking at the details of your implementation guide, however, I think doing analysis on this data looks like a whole lot of work for people who already have demanding full-time jobs.
I think if you can provide digital forms for a school to get different stakeholders to fill out, and then provide them with digestible results, that would be a realistic ask. Or possibly the test administrator agrees to meet twice with the Stanford researchers, once beforehand to discuss implementation and once afterwards to discuss results?
I say this with abundant sympathy as a person who is frequently in the position of trying to get other people to do interesting and useful things and being told that they are too complicated.
Such a great insight. We've been developing a TAPS supporting center at Stanford Social Media Lab. The idea is that we will create qualtrics surveys, share them with schools, and send schools a brief report.
Love to hear if you have other ideas to make TAPS better serve schools.
I'm so glad to hear it!
I hope After Babel will update us when those resources are available. I'd like to do a report like this for my school at that point!
Thank you! Just sent this to my school board.
Thank you Taylor!
Huge! Thank you Zach & team! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I'll be talking with my 14,000-student school district about the Toolkit this week. We negotiated an "off and away all day" MOU for 2024-25, but high school principals complained that it was impossible to enforce and wanted to make lunch and passing time "exempt". All we (the educators) ask for in return were consequences like those described in the Phone Free Schools Movement Administrators Guide. The district was shocked that we brought such issues to the table and talks last June, to modify the MOU, broke down. So, we are starting the school year with the same MOU as last year. But, now that we know enforcement may not be happening, this may be a difficult year!
Ray, thanks so much for the insight. Please update us on how you conversation with the district goes and how we can help.
Sunny, you asked for an update, and I have one. We met with our school district counterparts to again try and strengthen an MOU about student cell phones during the school day. While my hopes were high at 8am this morning, by 10am they were dashed! High school principals wanted an exemption from enforcing "off-and-away" all day for the lunch period. They say they lack the manpower and there is an "equity" issue - advantaged kids can get in their cars, leave campus during lunch, and use cell phones. Poor kids don't have cars, so they reasoned. While I thought it was weak to claim they could not enforce during lunch (and I agree it can be very tough, but you and I know there is a solution to that problem!), we were willing to exempt lunch, but we wanted teeth in terms of three escalating consequences for students violating the "off-and-away" expectation during the entirety of the instructional period. I suggested the consequences described in the Phone-Free Schools Movement Administrator Toolkit.
After stating that Washington state law prohibits schools from developing or using prescribed consequences for specific infractions in favor of a more "holistic" and equitable approach to student discipline/compliance and that we have never listed student consequences in our Collective Bargaining Agreement (not accurate), the district claimed that they were uncomfortable with agreeing to what our option was and that more time (another meeting) was probably needed. After the district left, my team decided that we were going to send a letter stating that, in light of the statements from the district at two meetings (June & August), we believe that continuing with the MOU unaltered and in effect for the 2025-26 school year is the path forward. Now that high school principals didn't get what they claimed to have needed and may have difficulted enforcing "off-and-away", I anticipate we will be filling grievances when the MOU is violated. I don't really want to play this game, but they simply don't seem to understand how important it is too our kids that we handle cell phone policies wisely and be the adults are kids need us to be.
There are many details to this story, but that is the gist.
I am a bit disappointed in my employer, today. Should be an interesting year.
Thanks so much Ray for the update. I am really sorry about the frustrating experience. Phone policy is as complicated as , if not more complicated than, many other issues schools have been struggling for a long time. Hopefully, we can find some creative solutions that can support school districts and schools. Thanks again for updating and working hard for our students.
I will do that, Sunny. Thank you.
love this! i'm the creator of blok — a physical solution to digital distractions.
we're based in sf and are generating tens of thousands of blok sessions per month at this point, which is equivalent to preventing 20+ years of doomscrolling per month.
wild stuff.
let me know if there's any way i can help :).
dani@blok.so
This is great! Yet…at some point people need to go after one of the larger problems for kids and adults as well: social media. It’s tobacco folks. The problem is few are willing to give it up. Their Facebook their Instagram is too precious. They’re Tik-Tok too much fun. Just my POV.
Their Tik-Tok. Spell check fail!!🥸
The above article admits TAPS "cannot fully control for confounding variables." That's the definition of understatement: it doesn't even try.
I'm going to keep repeating this until someone important finally pays attention: the Centers for Disease Control's analysis of the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey (the big one everyone cites) associated parental abuses, addiction, and mental problems with a staggering two-thirds of teens' depression, 84% of teen opiate abuse, and 89% of teens' suicide attempts. The CDC's companion analysis associated social media use with just about none of these problems. Authorities then chose to completely ignore what teens themselves told us in no uncertain terms were the biggest factors in their poor mental health. It's just those cellphones and social media, we insisted.
Now, the TAPS survey proposes yet again to completely ignore parental and family problems -- yes, these are uncomfortable issues for adults to face; yes, surveyors are reluctant to include them. The result is that TAPS is a narrow, sanitized instrument designed to maximize the chances of reaching a popular, politically pleasing result. We keep pretending youths and media and pop culture are the big problems while ignoring crucial factors driving social ills, then we wonder why nothing we do works and the United States continues, decade after decade, to be by far the highest-risk Western society for adults and teens alike.
But what to do about VPN? Or once you band school kids just text and cool around on their laptops using VPN.
Joe, that's such a good question. Kids always outsmart us. We will be conducting a co-design study with kids: ask them how to best handle situations like this, and how to make the policy implementation easier for teachers and schools.
At my school the kids keep their laptops at home for homework and use paper and pencils in class (we've got some ipad carts and computer labs that we sign out when there's some specific activity that needs computers). That tends to solve the problem if you're willing to take the plunge.
(I guess it doesn't solve the problem of passing notes! But that's a pretty old version of this problem).
The policies only work if they can’t be circumvented. My middle school niece tells me that all of the kids “don’t have phones” and “forgot them at home” in order to avoid turning them in.
Is it applicable to also measure the impact on mental health in families where clear phone rules in the family has been made alongside the school phone policy?