Jon, I work at a school which has focused on eliminating phones and done a great job of it. The problem now is that all the things that students were doing on their phones they are now able to do on their laptops. The next frontier in this battle is getting laptops out of classrooms; they are destroying students’ ability to write and think.
This. Phones are step one. The Google Chromebooks need to go too. Younger students know all the work arounds if they don't have a phone. My district implemented them starting about 8 years ago. Grades and scores have plummeted. There is no discussion of removal because the dirty secret is that they make teaching easier, there may be no learning, but the teacher's workload is lessened.
There is an extra problem here, in that schools have made teacher work infinitely harder in the last decade for numerous reasons: kids can turn in homework at anytime and lateness isn't punished anymore, many students have behavioral plans, special instructions or other challenges that teachers must manage along with teaching, some schools are "mainstreaming" so that children with special needs are incorporated into traditional classrooms, and it is harder to encourage/enforce pro-social behavior in classrooms because parents no longer trust schools to support pro-social behavior in their children. We've made teaching very hard, so of course teachers are looking for any opportunity to make their workload easier. I know several teachers and this isn't sustainable, most are burnt out and/or leaving.
Well, from my point of view as a teacher, I can't do my job with laptops in the room now. So, it doesn't make my job easier. It actually makes it impossible.
I understand your point, Alan. I was referencing the organization and grading mechanisms in the technology. I found it great to have quizzes that grade themselves and other technological advantages. I agree with you, I was just referencing that part of teaching.
I would love to see research on the impact of tablets, chromebooks, laptops, etc. on elementary and middle school students. I bekieve that they have negatively affected attention span, fine motor skills, and the ability to do in-depth analysis.
One of my friends who's a teacher's assistant says the school's curriculum implements iPads, which can be a great substitute for paper assignments, but the kids bypass the devices to go on TikTok during the day.
That they are. The child of some friends of ours and her little cronies figured out, in grade six a few years ago, how to use some hidden messaging feature of Google Classroom to mercilessly cyberbully a girl in their class. The teachers had no idea they could do that.
This is a question I have also - sadly the kids use their app store logins to download the same apps to the laptop and use them during class and school hours in place of the phone. How do schools police laptops, especially as often they are purchased by parents and thus not school property?
@Alan - and agree - though separate debate ;) they have impacted negatively writing and thinking skills.
Well, the most powerful group in any school are the parents (particularly if they are paying fees). Parents need to insist on laptops being given the boot because schools cannot effectively police their use at school. Also, they are a massive and unnecessary expense. Further, they cause a lot of interruptions to learning because they are broken, or not charged etc. It's a lot harder to break an exercise book!
Agree with this. While I feel it’s important this generation understands and is fluent with tech, I also feel “digital literacy” has gone amok and certainly is not “having a laptop “ Parents also require better education not only on the tech but also how to have meaningful dialogue and relationships with their kids. This takes work. I’ve been sharing excerpts of Jon’s (and the team) research/work with mine. He’s speaking about phones, social and mental health - and the kids can engage on these topics. Even though we’re in the Netherlands, the US SG warning helped.
I suppose it depends on where you live. But there are all kinds of things that are not allowed at school wether or not the parents buy them for their kids. A lot of schools have banned peanut butter they can certainly ban laptops. A laptop ban is incredibly easy to implement. You simply add a rule to your rule book that laptops are not allowed at school and that students caught with laptops will have to turn them into the principal’s office until the end of the day. That’s how cell phones were treated for a long time and it mostly worked other than that it was possible to use them stealthily. Using a laptop stealthily isn’t really feasible.
Thing is, every couple of hundred years some new technology comes along (think Printing Press, Steam Engine) and Everything changes. We are smack dab in the middle of one right now. All thanks to that little Silicon Chip. We (humans) are only starting to figure out how to deal with it. We will, but until then, its gonna be....interesting.
I just discussed this my wife who is a middle school teacher and every kid has a Chromebook. She has a program called "Go Guardian" that allows her to see what each kid is doing and can lock down the entire class's computers. She tries to only use the computers as needed and not for the entire class and when kid is off task, she can block whatever they are doing.
Brilliant as always, Jonathan. It is telling that many Silicon Valley executives send their kids to phone free schools, while they engineer products more addictive than cigarettes. Parents need to take more responsibility because they control purchasing decisions and model behavior. I am shocked by how many toddlers are dependent on screens because their parents are too exhausted to coax them through meals, diaper changes, etc.
Yes!! I wrote about my husband's and my experience getting rid of the tv when our kids were little: the challenges but mainly the joy. It's so worth it. Other than loving our three as best we could, it really was the best thing we ever did as parents: https://marypoindextermclaughlin.substack.com/p/best-thing-we-ever-did-as-parents
Yuri. Your photo suggests to my tired Boomer eyes that you may have been at school when TV and top of the Pops was the worry of many a parent. Now modern life has undergone a seismic change boosted by C19 shutdowns. Suddenly AI rules our lives in virtually every respect except physical endeavour (sport)
I suggest we teach our children at the earliest age, in the traditional 1950 classroom or at home, information retrieval in a way that will prepare them for adult hood. Sadly life as we homosapien know it is passe. Just go with the flow now it's a torrent 🙂
Re "They said too many parents would be upset if they could not reach their children during the school day."
I'm always bemused that adults insist on constant contact with their children (or each other) when, after all, this was not a possibility for virtually 100% of human history and we all seemed to do just fine.
We don't allow smoking at schools because of the health risks, we need to think of smart phones the same way. Jonathan, I just wrote about reversing the 1:1 trend in schools where every child, in some cases as early as grade one are given a device to use (i.e. chrome book, iPad, laptop). The free access to these devices causes just as much harm to the learning process in my view as phones! We need to get back to face to face communication in as many areas of our lives as we can, especially for children. Thanks for all the work that you do!
Dr. Haidt, I've commented on this topic with you many times previously. I'm a retired high school teacher, and among the confluence of events that prompted my exit was the invasion of hand-held technology in my classroom.
In essence, I was competing with the tech giants' best and brightest for students attention. And losing. I wrote back in Sept. 2021: "The usurpers were too smart, too manipulative and brazenly uncaring. Here I was, at a teacher’s salary, pitted against youthful MENSA app developers in Silicon Valley whose pay scales and IQs exceed mine by factors of 100 ... I had no chance."
Thank you, Darren. Very poignant. Brillant art and poetry come together. Wonderful. Captured my feelings.
By the way, I write about all kinds of things that interest me ... from humor/satire to personal reflections to commentary on social issues.
Right now I'm working on a piece that harkens back to my days as a Lit teacher ... a feature on English Romantic poet George Gordon (Lord) Byron -- "Mad, bad and dangerous to know." I don't know if my American audience knows a lot about the notorious Lord Byron. ;--)
Thank you for this excellent post Jon! Your work is not just drawing attention to the fact that phones are destroying our children's attention, relationships, and mental health, but also providing specific data, delivers the potency that parents and teachers need to enact changes. I especially appreciate how you address the opposing arguments and your proposition to simply provide a dumb phone.
I recently organized a 30-day digital detox within the substack community https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/from-feeding-moloch-to-digital-minimalism, and am now reading about all the freedoms that the participants regained during this time. Most of them deleted all social media apps, many of them kept their phone away from their body or even in a separate room, and none of them plan on going back to their anxiety-provoking scrolling habits. They have rediscovered what it means to have cognitive liberty and even state that they have 'limit-less potential', and simply feel normal again.
They have reawakened to the freedom of limits. Why would we take this freedom away from our children if we can choose a different path? Thanks again for your essential and wonderful work!
"From the dashboard, parents can activate school mode or quiet mode, which limits device use during the day.
“We had a rule: It was not allowed to go to school,” says Bonikowske. “We had an incident where it did go to school. I got the notification on the phone, and I called him, heard the classroom in the background, and I muted it. I emailed the teacher, and said ‘I’ll come pick it up.’”
Apple/Android should have "School Mode" for school-aged children, with parental control of settings, apps and access. This is an area where physical controls are almost useless - I suspect the reason for its conspicuous absence is are the entrenched attention economy interests who would scream bloody murder at any incursion on their market, like the sugar lobby brooks no interference in the production and marketing of children's cereals.
Thank you, Dr. Haidt. The benefits of phone-free schools seem clear, but I’m skeptical that such policies could be implemented without significant buy-in from students and parents. I’m Gen Z, but I’m old enough to remember hearing about how much of a victory it was when the student government at my neighborhood high school convinced the administration to begin allowing phones at lunch. (That was c. 2012.) Phones have only become bigger parts of social life since then, so unless students and parents are also on board, I think we’d only see major pushback and eventual folding from administrators. Have you and Zach considered strategies for increasing buy-in among students themselves for any of these phone-free policies?
Re school shootings, the real deciding factor is that school shootings are very very rare, while phones (and their attendant harms) are omnipresent. The balancing test is pretty clear.
I was in middle school on 9/11, pre-cell phone, in a commuter suburb of New York. Because there were no cell phones, teachers were sending kids home on the buses without knowing if their parents would be home to meet them. (They actually cancelled all afterschool activities but also said the school phones were down and you couldn't call home because they kept a total lid on news of the attacks for the whole school day). The worst part of the day wasn't the lack of phones, and it wouldn't make sense to have phones everywhere for the sake of those rare, horrific events.
It is not a small caveat that schools still have to deal with students messaging via laptops and tablet — still, there is much, much I agree with in this piece. Having seen what happened over two decades of teaching MS & HS (2000-2021), I would have found any schoolwide attempt to reduce tech distractions welcome. Instead, teachers were left to our own devices (pun intended) and constantly pressured to use more tech. (Also key to student mental health issues: online grade books where they can monitor grades like they are day-trading stocks.)
There is also the question of the impact of parental phone use on children's mental health. Its tragic and infuriating when you see a family together and the parents are ignoring the kids and glued to their phones, especially if the kids are in the 5-12 age range. I really wonder what it is doing for the children's self-esteem and social skills, not to mention their relationship with the parents, as well as setting an example which kids will pick up. As a parent of young children (eldest 5) I am becoming hyper aware of how my own phone and device use impacts them. I am trying to minimise use in front of them, going as far as hiding my phone inside a paperback book when I really need to use it.
I think the only realistic way to prevent phone use is to block cellular access in schools. This can be done through a variety of methods, active jamming and passive isolation (ie make schools into a "Faraday Cage"). In fact the high school my kids went to was that way naturally because so many rooms were interior in a brick building (a product of the reversal of the open classroom mess) and they essentially would not work. Virtually all schools have private wifi networks for staff but not students so it wouldn't interfere with how they use electronic tools. Of course as you mention the politics behind implementing this would be difficult given current parenting paranoia. But there are technical solutions that would be very hard for any individual to bypass.
It's been pointed out to me everytime I've proposed such solutions that it is infact illegal, at least in the US. FCC regulations prohibit it. Tempest facilities which are Faraday cages have to get special dispensation having to do with handling classified material. Also, it's very difficult to make a large Faraday cage work. At least two SCIFs that I worked in discovered accidental violations of the leave your cellphone outside requirement when these cellphones rang inside. .
I like the idea. Students will unquestionably learn better in class without their phones. As for laptops, why are they needed in class? I really don't know as my kids are adults now (35, 32, 29) so my next school age kid experience will come when my kids grapple with their kids, my grandkids.
They aren't really, but there was a push a few years ago that was accelerated with Covid that every kid needed their own computer. "1 to 1" initiatives were all the rage to show that schools were innovating.
Why not explore and teach better ways of using phones? Speaking personally: i had problems with phone use. Eventually, I learned to use social media in a way that was good for my mental health and relationships.
My concern with the ‘no phone’ rule is that kids will use them outside school. so, many (or even all) of the problems will still exist. And then, when they become 18, they’ll never have learned skills to use them well.
I suspect that schools that implement a ‘no phone rule’ may not see much improvement.
Also, It’s a little odd to make a rule when adults don’t have the answer for themselves. Kids imitate. If parents use the phones well, kids will learn from that behavior. Many adults have problems with their phones. Until we solve that problem. I’m not sure what we’re going to teach kids.
I’m curious: do the authors use phones well? How so? what are they teaching their kids? Is it working?
I am extremely skeptical of any ‘rule’ that someone cannot personally use themselves :)
Jun 6, 2023·edited Jun 6, 2023Liked by Zach Rausch
I understand what you're saying, but I think the author is advocating for delaying phone use, not eliminating it. Kids/teens have different impulse control than adults, and their brains are not fully developed . It's one of the reasons why there are age restrictions on other potentially harmful/addictive things like alcohol or getting tattoos. (Not that I'm personally against either of those things, but they can be addictive, expensive, and have life-long consequences in some cases.) We still allow adults to do those things and more, and some adults do them excessively, but just because parents/adults are not perfect, it doesn't mean we can't shield our kids from repeating our mistakes. He's also not advocating for never allowing kids to get a smart phone - I don't know when the right time is for a smart phone, but we should introduce them when the child is more mature and we can teach them (both by example and through rules) how to use it wisely. This article actually encourages me to do a better job of phone control for myself at home and at work; why can't rules implemented for the next generation be a good example for the parents, too? I think part of the pushback we adults have is that we feel guilty or don't want to stop our own addictions (speaking for myself here).
I don't know what the societal answer is for phone addiction, but school (or school equivalent) is such a vital component of children's social development, so phone disruption among peers and in the classroom does seem to require some additional oversight. Giving these kids the foundation to interact sans technology will hopefully spark changes outside the classroom, too. I know this is a Pollyanna view on things, but I'd prefer to be hopeful!
The school can't control what they do outside of school, but it is clear that not having access in school is more beneficial than any benefit they might provide in school. The break of 7 hours per day without the phone would have a huge benefit. I think you can try to teach better use all you want to kids, but the fact is that the device and the apps are addictive. Kids (and most adults) do not have the ability to resist the draw of the dopamine hit they get from each text, snap, etc. You have to remove the temptation. Refer to the paragraph above about just having the phone in the room was enough to provide a disruption to learning. Adults have problems too, but does that mean we shouldn't try to help the kids? Just taking the phone away is a great way to show that the world keeps moving even if you miss a text message.
We live in an age where we have difficulty in knowing what we want for ourselves and our children. We are conditioned to desire to possess what we do not have, instead of becoming what we potentially could be. For a host of reasons, I decided when my oldest child was 12 and my youngest was about 8, to begin to talk with them like adults. Specifically, to help them think for themselves. Instead of just answering their questions, I would engage in a Q&A with them. I did not want them to grow up too fast. I didn’t want them to be susceptible to the manipulation that modern society uses to exploit them. I wanted to empower them to become persons of impact as they would define themselves.
Jon, I work at a school which has focused on eliminating phones and done a great job of it. The problem now is that all the things that students were doing on their phones they are now able to do on their laptops. The next frontier in this battle is getting laptops out of classrooms; they are destroying students’ ability to write and think.
This. Phones are step one. The Google Chromebooks need to go too. Younger students know all the work arounds if they don't have a phone. My district implemented them starting about 8 years ago. Grades and scores have plummeted. There is no discussion of removal because the dirty secret is that they make teaching easier, there may be no learning, but the teacher's workload is lessened.
There is an extra problem here, in that schools have made teacher work infinitely harder in the last decade for numerous reasons: kids can turn in homework at anytime and lateness isn't punished anymore, many students have behavioral plans, special instructions or other challenges that teachers must manage along with teaching, some schools are "mainstreaming" so that children with special needs are incorporated into traditional classrooms, and it is harder to encourage/enforce pro-social behavior in classrooms because parents no longer trust schools to support pro-social behavior in their children. We've made teaching very hard, so of course teachers are looking for any opportunity to make their workload easier. I know several teachers and this isn't sustainable, most are burnt out and/or leaving.
1. Thanks! 2. What we see here is a positive change by that little silicon chip.
""Do one thing every day that scares you."-- Eleanor Roosevelt"
Listen to an try to make sense of a Kamala Harris speech? :-)
Well, from my point of view as a teacher, I can't do my job with laptops in the room now. So, it doesn't make my job easier. It actually makes it impossible.
I understand your point, Alan. I was referencing the organization and grading mechanisms in the technology. I found it great to have quizzes that grade themselves and other technological advantages. I agree with you, I was just referencing that part of teaching.
well said, Shawn 🙏🏼
I would love to see research on the impact of tablets, chromebooks, laptops, etc. on elementary and middle school students. I bekieve that they have negatively affected attention span, fine motor skills, and the ability to do in-depth analysis.
One of my friends who's a teacher's assistant says the school's curriculum implements iPads, which can be a great substitute for paper assignments, but the kids bypass the devices to go on TikTok during the day.
kids are crafty
That they are. The child of some friends of ours and her little cronies figured out, in grade six a few years ago, how to use some hidden messaging feature of Google Classroom to mercilessly cyberbully a girl in their class. The teachers had no idea they could do that.
This is a question I have also - sadly the kids use their app store logins to download the same apps to the laptop and use them during class and school hours in place of the phone. How do schools police laptops, especially as often they are purchased by parents and thus not school property?
@Alan - and agree - though separate debate ;) they have impacted negatively writing and thinking skills.
Well, the most powerful group in any school are the parents (particularly if they are paying fees). Parents need to insist on laptops being given the boot because schools cannot effectively police their use at school. Also, they are a massive and unnecessary expense. Further, they cause a lot of interruptions to learning because they are broken, or not charged etc. It's a lot harder to break an exercise book!
Agree with this. While I feel it’s important this generation understands and is fluent with tech, I also feel “digital literacy” has gone amok and certainly is not “having a laptop “ Parents also require better education not only on the tech but also how to have meaningful dialogue and relationships with their kids. This takes work. I’ve been sharing excerpts of Jon’s (and the team) research/work with mine. He’s speaking about phones, social and mental health - and the kids can engage on these topics. Even though we’re in the Netherlands, the US SG warning helped.
At 63 years old I still have some of my exercise books. It is fascinating to revisit these to see my progress, let alone my handwriting!
agreed, Joanna 🙏🏼
i'd like to put my recent post (re: digital heroin) on your radar. https://opentochange.substack.com/p/growing-up-before-digital-heroin
I suppose it depends on where you live. But there are all kinds of things that are not allowed at school wether or not the parents buy them for their kids. A lot of schools have banned peanut butter they can certainly ban laptops. A laptop ban is incredibly easy to implement. You simply add a rule to your rule book that laptops are not allowed at school and that students caught with laptops will have to turn them into the principal’s office until the end of the day. That’s how cell phones were treated for a long time and it mostly worked other than that it was possible to use them stealthily. Using a laptop stealthily isn’t really feasible.
Exactly! These kids are glued to so call "educational" games on their devices that are designed to steal their attention.
Thing is, every couple of hundred years some new technology comes along (think Printing Press, Steam Engine) and Everything changes. We are smack dab in the middle of one right now. All thanks to that little Silicon Chip. We (humans) are only starting to figure out how to deal with it. We will, but until then, its gonna be....interesting.
There isn’t a way to control what can be downloaded on laptops? Or are these personal (not school issues) laptops?
Kids know the work arounds and the IT departments at schools are manned by "teachers" and not someone familiar with computer science.
yes... kids are smarter than we think...
https://opentochange.substack.com/p/growing-up-before-digital-heroin
I just discussed this my wife who is a middle school teacher and every kid has a Chromebook. She has a program called "Go Guardian" that allows her to see what each kid is doing and can lock down the entire class's computers. She tries to only use the computers as needed and not for the entire class and when kid is off task, she can block whatever they are doing.
Interesting. Thank you
This has been my experience also when I worked for a few years as a sub.
Brilliant as always, Jonathan. It is telling that many Silicon Valley executives send their kids to phone free schools, while they engineer products more addictive than cigarettes. Parents need to take more responsibility because they control purchasing decisions and model behavior. I am shocked by how many toddlers are dependent on screens because their parents are too exhausted to coax them through meals, diaper changes, etc.
Yes!! I wrote about my husband's and my experience getting rid of the tv when our kids were little: the challenges but mainly the joy. It's so worth it. Other than loving our three as best we could, it really was the best thing we ever did as parents: https://marypoindextermclaughlin.substack.com/p/best-thing-we-ever-did-as-parents
beautiful comment, Yuri 🙏🏼
i'd like to put my recent post (re: digital heroin) on your radar. https://opentochange.substack.com/p/growing-up-before-digital-heroin
Yuri. Your photo suggests to my tired Boomer eyes that you may have been at school when TV and top of the Pops was the worry of many a parent. Now modern life has undergone a seismic change boosted by C19 shutdowns. Suddenly AI rules our lives in virtually every respect except physical endeavour (sport)
I suggest we teach our children at the earliest age, in the traditional 1950 classroom or at home, information retrieval in a way that will prepare them for adult hood. Sadly life as we homosapien know it is passe. Just go with the flow now it's a torrent 🙂
Re "They said too many parents would be upset if they could not reach their children during the school day."
I'm always bemused that adults insist on constant contact with their children (or each other) when, after all, this was not a possibility for virtually 100% of human history and we all seemed to do just fine.
the parents are just as addicted to the phones as their children.
agreed, Clay 🙏🏼
i'd like to put my recent post (re: digital heroin) on your radar. https://opentochange.substack.com/p/growing-up-before-digital-heroin
I really like the art, as well as the verse and their meaning.
thanks for reading, Clay 🙏🏼
perhaps you'd like to subscribe...
We don't allow smoking at schools because of the health risks, we need to think of smart phones the same way. Jonathan, I just wrote about reversing the 1:1 trend in schools where every child, in some cases as early as grade one are given a device to use (i.e. chrome book, iPad, laptop). The free access to these devices causes just as much harm to the learning process in my view as phones! We need to get back to face to face communication in as many areas of our lives as we can, especially for children. Thanks for all the work that you do!
nicely said, DC 🙏🏼
We don’t allow smoking at schools because it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to smoke. You can’t compare those things to each other.
Dr. Haidt, I've commented on this topic with you many times previously. I'm a retired high school teacher, and among the confluence of events that prompted my exit was the invasion of hand-held technology in my classroom.
In essence, I was competing with the tech giants' best and brightest for students attention. And losing. I wrote back in Sept. 2021: "The usurpers were too smart, too manipulative and brazenly uncaring. Here I was, at a teacher’s salary, pitted against youthful MENSA app developers in Silicon Valley whose pay scales and IQs exceed mine by factors of 100 ... I had no chance."
https://jimgeschke.substack.com/p/we-need-a-12-step-program-for-cellphone
You and Greg Lukianoff are referenced in this piece. '
This problem is as damaging to America's future as almost any other social malaise. I'm glad you and others are focusing on it and offering solutions.
thoughtful comment, Jim 🙏🏼
i'd like to put my recent post (re: digital heroin) on your radar. https://opentochange.substack.com/p/growing-up-before-digital-heroin
Thank you, Darren. Very poignant. Brillant art and poetry come together. Wonderful. Captured my feelings.
By the way, I write about all kinds of things that interest me ... from humor/satire to personal reflections to commentary on social issues.
Right now I'm working on a piece that harkens back to my days as a Lit teacher ... a feature on English Romantic poet George Gordon (Lord) Byron -- "Mad, bad and dangerous to know." I don't know if my American audience knows a lot about the notorious Lord Byron. ;--)
thanks Jim 🙏🏼
i know Byron... i quote him in my book.
"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;"
Byron, (1788 – 1824), English poet…
Thank you for this excellent post Jon! Your work is not just drawing attention to the fact that phones are destroying our children's attention, relationships, and mental health, but also providing specific data, delivers the potency that parents and teachers need to enact changes. I especially appreciate how you address the opposing arguments and your proposition to simply provide a dumb phone.
I recently organized a 30-day digital detox within the substack community https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/from-feeding-moloch-to-digital-minimalism, and am now reading about all the freedoms that the participants regained during this time. Most of them deleted all social media apps, many of them kept their phone away from their body or even in a separate room, and none of them plan on going back to their anxiety-provoking scrolling habits. They have rediscovered what it means to have cognitive liberty and even state that they have 'limit-less potential', and simply feel normal again.
They have reawakened to the freedom of limits. Why would we take this freedom away from our children if we can choose a different path? Thanks again for your essential and wonderful work!
"and simply feel normal again"
well said, Ruth 🙏🏼
From Verizon's page on the GizmoWatch:
"From the dashboard, parents can activate school mode or quiet mode, which limits device use during the day.
“We had a rule: It was not allowed to go to school,” says Bonikowske. “We had an incident where it did go to school. I got the notification on the phone, and I called him, heard the classroom in the background, and I muted it. I emailed the teacher, and said ‘I’ll come pick it up.’”
Apple/Android should have "School Mode" for school-aged children, with parental control of settings, apps and access. This is an area where physical controls are almost useless - I suspect the reason for its conspicuous absence is are the entrenched attention economy interests who would scream bloody murder at any incursion on their market, like the sugar lobby brooks no interference in the production and marketing of children's cereals.
Thank you, Dr. Haidt. The benefits of phone-free schools seem clear, but I’m skeptical that such policies could be implemented without significant buy-in from students and parents. I’m Gen Z, but I’m old enough to remember hearing about how much of a victory it was when the student government at my neighborhood high school convinced the administration to begin allowing phones at lunch. (That was c. 2012.) Phones have only become bigger parts of social life since then, so unless students and parents are also on board, I think we’d only see major pushback and eventual folding from administrators. Have you and Zach considered strategies for increasing buy-in among students themselves for any of these phone-free policies?
I've been getting more strict on cellphones in my college classroom. It has had a benefit on engagement for sure. Next up is the laptops!
Re school shootings, the real deciding factor is that school shootings are very very rare, while phones (and their attendant harms) are omnipresent. The balancing test is pretty clear.
I was in middle school on 9/11, pre-cell phone, in a commuter suburb of New York. Because there were no cell phones, teachers were sending kids home on the buses without knowing if their parents would be home to meet them. (They actually cancelled all afterschool activities but also said the school phones were down and you couldn't call home because they kept a total lid on news of the attacks for the whole school day). The worst part of the day wasn't the lack of phones, and it wouldn't make sense to have phones everywhere for the sake of those rare, horrific events.
It is not a small caveat that schools still have to deal with students messaging via laptops and tablet — still, there is much, much I agree with in this piece. Having seen what happened over two decades of teaching MS & HS (2000-2021), I would have found any schoolwide attempt to reduce tech distractions welcome. Instead, teachers were left to our own devices (pun intended) and constantly pressured to use more tech. (Also key to student mental health issues: online grade books where they can monitor grades like they are day-trading stocks.)
I wrote a related piece a few months ago: https://annelutzfernandez.substack.com/p/taking-on-social-medias-hold-on-children
There is also the question of the impact of parental phone use on children's mental health. Its tragic and infuriating when you see a family together and the parents are ignoring the kids and glued to their phones, especially if the kids are in the 5-12 age range. I really wonder what it is doing for the children's self-esteem and social skills, not to mention their relationship with the parents, as well as setting an example which kids will pick up. As a parent of young children (eldest 5) I am becoming hyper aware of how my own phone and device use impacts them. I am trying to minimise use in front of them, going as far as hiding my phone inside a paperback book when I really need to use it.
I think the only realistic way to prevent phone use is to block cellular access in schools. This can be done through a variety of methods, active jamming and passive isolation (ie make schools into a "Faraday Cage"). In fact the high school my kids went to was that way naturally because so many rooms were interior in a brick building (a product of the reversal of the open classroom mess) and they essentially would not work. Virtually all schools have private wifi networks for staff but not students so it wouldn't interfere with how they use electronic tools. Of course as you mention the politics behind implementing this would be difficult given current parenting paranoia. But there are technical solutions that would be very hard for any individual to bypass.
It's been pointed out to me everytime I've proposed such solutions that it is infact illegal, at least in the US. FCC regulations prohibit it. Tempest facilities which are Faraday cages have to get special dispensation having to do with handling classified material. Also, it's very difficult to make a large Faraday cage work. At least two SCIFs that I worked in discovered accidental violations of the leave your cellphone outside requirement when these cellphones rang inside. .
I like the idea. Students will unquestionably learn better in class without their phones. As for laptops, why are they needed in class? I really don't know as my kids are adults now (35, 32, 29) so my next school age kid experience will come when my kids grapple with their kids, my grandkids.
They aren't really, but there was a push a few years ago that was accelerated with Covid that every kid needed their own computer. "1 to 1" initiatives were all the rage to show that schools were innovating.
And now I watch as those Chromebooks break and wonder where the money to replace them and maintain the one-to-one will come from.
Why not explore and teach better ways of using phones? Speaking personally: i had problems with phone use. Eventually, I learned to use social media in a way that was good for my mental health and relationships.
My concern with the ‘no phone’ rule is that kids will use them outside school. so, many (or even all) of the problems will still exist. And then, when they become 18, they’ll never have learned skills to use them well.
I suspect that schools that implement a ‘no phone rule’ may not see much improvement.
Also, It’s a little odd to make a rule when adults don’t have the answer for themselves. Kids imitate. If parents use the phones well, kids will learn from that behavior. Many adults have problems with their phones. Until we solve that problem. I’m not sure what we’re going to teach kids.
I’m curious: do the authors use phones well? How so? what are they teaching their kids? Is it working?
I am extremely skeptical of any ‘rule’ that someone cannot personally use themselves :)
I understand what you're saying, but I think the author is advocating for delaying phone use, not eliminating it. Kids/teens have different impulse control than adults, and their brains are not fully developed . It's one of the reasons why there are age restrictions on other potentially harmful/addictive things like alcohol or getting tattoos. (Not that I'm personally against either of those things, but they can be addictive, expensive, and have life-long consequences in some cases.) We still allow adults to do those things and more, and some adults do them excessively, but just because parents/adults are not perfect, it doesn't mean we can't shield our kids from repeating our mistakes. He's also not advocating for never allowing kids to get a smart phone - I don't know when the right time is for a smart phone, but we should introduce them when the child is more mature and we can teach them (both by example and through rules) how to use it wisely. This article actually encourages me to do a better job of phone control for myself at home and at work; why can't rules implemented for the next generation be a good example for the parents, too? I think part of the pushback we adults have is that we feel guilty or don't want to stop our own addictions (speaking for myself here).
I don't know what the societal answer is for phone addiction, but school (or school equivalent) is such a vital component of children's social development, so phone disruption among peers and in the classroom does seem to require some additional oversight. Giving these kids the foundation to interact sans technology will hopefully spark changes outside the classroom, too. I know this is a Pollyanna view on things, but I'd prefer to be hopeful!
The school can't control what they do outside of school, but it is clear that not having access in school is more beneficial than any benefit they might provide in school. The break of 7 hours per day without the phone would have a huge benefit. I think you can try to teach better use all you want to kids, but the fact is that the device and the apps are addictive. Kids (and most adults) do not have the ability to resist the draw of the dopamine hit they get from each text, snap, etc. You have to remove the temptation. Refer to the paragraph above about just having the phone in the room was enough to provide a disruption to learning. Adults have problems too, but does that mean we shouldn't try to help the kids? Just taking the phone away is a great way to show that the world keeps moving even if you miss a text message.
We live in an age where we have difficulty in knowing what we want for ourselves and our children. We are conditioned to desire to possess what we do not have, instead of becoming what we potentially could be. For a host of reasons, I decided when my oldest child was 12 and my youngest was about 8, to begin to talk with them like adults. Specifically, to help them think for themselves. Instead of just answering their questions, I would engage in a Q&A with them. I did not want them to grow up too fast. I didn’t want them to be susceptible to the manipulation that modern society uses to exploit them. I wanted to empower them to become persons of impact as they would define themselves.