^{The Bottom Line} Finally Something the Politicians Agree On: Phone-Free Schools

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is making a call on schools to restrict phones in schools, putting him in a rare place of agreement with colleagues like Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee, his opposite in almost every respect.

Huckabee sent a copy of Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation to every other governor in the country with a simple appeal: protect kids from too much screentime. Haidt argues, with extensive research, that the mental health of those born between 1995 and 2012 declined around a decade ago because we “overprotected kids in the real world and under-protected them in the virtual world.”

With children playing less and scrolling more, the perennial need for outdoor activity, socialization, and interpersonal relationships go malnourished all the way through adolescence. The result is a lot of sad-eyed college kids and an unprecedented demand for mental health professionals. 

Jean Twenge, another social psychologist who studies generational trends, has gone through the usual suspects for the rise of anxiety and depression among Gen Z, including destabilizing economies, warfare and global terrorism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a greater social acceptance for mental struggles. However, she argues none of these factors comes even close to the smartphone and its host of addictive social media apps. 

The emerging consensus around this issue should take it out of the national political arena entirely except for one factor. Public schools could ban smartphones without any need for legislation, except that they’d have to go through the powerful constituency of parents who want immediate access to their kids. The anxiety around school shootings is doubtlessly a factor here, too. Post-Columbine, parents point out that kids can immediately dial 911 in the event of a school shooting. It’s a fair concern, but misguided. Security experts note that phones can distract kids during the chaos and keep them from listening to the teachers’ instructions. The lights and noises coming from phones can also attract the assailant’s notice. Other critics say that phone bans might penalize students who have jobs or family responsibilities. For schools that require laptops, students who can’t afford them might need to use their phones to participate in assignments. However, if schools aren’t providing laptops for everyone, then they have another problem entirely. In addition, it hardly takes more time for parents and family members to reach students through the school secretary. 

I grew up in a “phone-free” school in the 2010s and would highly recommend it. Phones represented clear threats to learning, collaboration, and creativity. My school also instilled a love of reading. I am fortunate to have escaped the worst of the screen deluge, even as I combat screen addiction today. There’s no question that smartphones are designed to hook us until we get headaches. Do we care enough to spare the next generation the pain? 

For years, serious researchers like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge would occasionally come out with an op-ed in The Atlantic about the harms smartphones were doing to kids. For years, people would share the articles only for the train to keep steadily heading toward the cliff. It might be low hanging fruit to go after cell phones in schools, but at least now our politicians can recognize what the research has been indicating for a while now: smartphones are bad for kids and we should get them out of schools.