In an attempt to reduce classroom distractions for students as worries about their mental health grow, more states are examining legislation to prohibit or restrict smartphone use in schools.
As state legislatures gather throughout the nation in the new year, lawmakers in Alabama, Maryland, and New Hampshire last week unveiled measures to limit smartphone use in schools. According to the health policy research group KFF, they join lawmakers in 11 other states who have submitted legislation aimed at removing limitations as of December.
Our learning settings are being adversely affected by screens, which divert students’ focus from their studies and make it more difficult for teachers to carry out their duties. In her inauguration speech last week, Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire stated that she would no longer support such legislation.
The education departments of many states, including Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maryland, have also recommended or tested limits. The proposed law in Alabama calls for fining pupils who break the rules.
These states would join eight others—California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia—that have restricted or outlawed cell phones in public schools throughout the state if they passed the new law.
The new regulation follows mounting evidence that kids are actively utilizing their phones to access social media, which has been connected to eating disorders, anxiety, despair, and body dissatisfaction.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2023, 51% of American students used social media for at least four hours per day.
As Australia did last year, lawmakers in several jurisdictions have gone even farther and are suggesting banning minors under 16 from using social media. While Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Mississippi, sponsored federal legislation in 2023 to establish a legal age to use social media, it died in committee. Currently, politicians in Indiana are debating a similar plan.
Proponents of limiting students’ use of cellphones in class, some of which have bipartisan support, claim that doing so will help them concentrate on their assignments rather than the group chat during class.
However, other parents argue that smartphone availability is a matter of public safety.
According to 45-year-old single mother Jeara Underwood, if her four children aren’t allowed to use their phones in public schools in Colorado, she will remove them.
In Colorado, there isn’t a statewide policy, but several districts have limitations on smartphone use. Her kids are advised to keep their phones in their bags and not bring them to school.
According to Underwood, “my child should be able to have their cellphone so they can call for help or to call me in the event of an emergency at school.”
According to psychologist Mary Alvord, who works with teenagers as a clinician and with the American Psychological Association to develop guidelines for healthy technology use, widespread prohibitions lead to new disciplinary problems and fail to acknowledge the pervasiveness of technology, such as students’ use of laptops in class.
“The goal is not just to keep teens off a mobile device until the school bell rings, but to teach them to have a healthy relationship with technology and social media,” she said.
It’s similar like outlawing books. “If you don’t actually teach media literacy, you’re missing out on a lot of good literature,” she said. Since the entire field of technology advances more quickly than lawmakers, it takes a long time to amend legislation.
Alvord stated that it is more crucial and beneficial for teenagers to learn how to use their phones appropriately, even while such restrictions may lessen bullying and assist students in concentrating on not using their phones in class.
“I do believe that some boundaries are necessary,” she remarked. Legal limitations, however, raise the ante.