Night after night, we spend countless hours getting lost in the spiral of using our phones. Over and over again, we switch from app to app, video to video, trying to get that next hit of dopamine.
Gen Z teenagers, more than any other generation, are facing the challenges of self-regulating and learning how to grow with this world of ever-evolving technology. Unfortunately, the United States school system seems more focused on a forcible restriction as opposed to teaching and encouraging healthy and productive phone usage.
Whether one agrees on just how normal a child owning a phone has become, the unavoidable truth is that children have phones, and they use them a lot. A JAMA Pediatrics study found that children aged eight-12 have a screen time of around five hours a day, with teenagers 13 and up having around seven-and-a-half hours a day. Many experts recommend no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day for adults, let alone young children. Schools are not unreasonable for trying to limit children’s screen time during school hours; they are supposed to encourage healthy behavior for students.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a jump in the percentage of children with access to smartphones. In just six years, from 2015-2021, the percentage of children aged 12-18 who own a smartphone has gone from 65% to 85%, according to a Common Sense Media Report. With more children having access to these devices and building unhealthy habits, schools have attempted an intervention.
As of the 2019-2020 academic school year, 76.9 percent of schools had rules in place “prohibiting non academic use of cell phones or smartphones during school hours,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The vast majority of schools have implemented phone restrictions such as that, but their overall attempts in doing so are misguided and ineffective.
The argument for restricting phone usage in schools largely revolves around three points, according to an article from the Harvard Graduate School of Education: An increase in disruptive behavior, links between attention and test scores dropping and the personal and school-wide harm stemming from social media. Evidence shows a negative impact on test scores and long-term memory retention when phones are present in a classroom setting. The element of “multitasking” that having access to one’s phone provides has been found to negatively affect learning and work completion. The academic performance of students goes down and one of a school’s main duties is to ensure children are performing as well academically as they can, so why not remove a distraction?
Advocates arguing for phones to stay in school tend to focus on the safety they provide. Many students feel safer knowing they can walk through their school with a way to reach out for help in case of bullying or harassment. They can call their mom, dad, sister or brother and receive help. In cases of emergency, having a way to contact help could literally save your life. You are able to text or call whoever, from wherever.
Students rely on their phones for communicating with people outside of school. Alvirne High School in Hudson, NH, is one example of a school that reversed its no-phone policy after a safety scare in 2019, according to a 2022 AHS graduate who was present during the incident. A bomb threat was made on social media towards the high school causing students to panic. They wanted to reach out to their families, to go home, but they did not have their phones on them. The distribution process slowed response times and made it clear that phones should not be taken from children in school.
Children need to be allowed to have their phones with them at all times during school. The risk to the students’ safety is not worth whatever academic perfection a school might want to achieve. Phones should be allowed, but there should be a structure and boundaries established on a classroom-by-classroom basis. In between classes, in the bathrooms and at lunch are all perfectly reasonable times to use a phone that would not interrupt learning. Scheduling a short break during class where students can unwind and have phone time would not disrupt learning. There are a plethora of ways schools can handle phones without just banning or restricting them; they just actually have to do it.
Harvie Marcotti can be contacted at
hmarcotti@kscequinox.com
