It’s good to see that state education commissioner Jeffrey Riley is willing to take a realistic look at the problems connected with student cellphone usage. Riley’s focus is rightfully on how children’s mental health is being affected by cell phones. But just as important is the adverse effect of phone use in the classroom on academic achievement. Over 90% of principals in a 2020 study supported restrictions on cellphone use for students in middle and high schools, and over 80% said they believed that cellphone use during school has negative consequences for social development and academics. As someone who has spent the last four years as a substitute teacher, I can tell you that unlimited cellphone use by students makes the daily challenge of managing a classroom even more daunting.
Teachers know that young people can be easily distracted from their studies and having easy access to a mobile phone during class can make it easier for them to lose focus. Attention gets divided between two tasks—what the teacher is trying to teach and what the student is trying to do on the digital device. The result is that fewer items regarding those two tasks will be able to be recalled or retained. Research has shown that cellphones distract and negatively impact reaction times, performance, and cognitive capacity. Even if the phone is not in use, students have difficulty recalling and retaining information because of the very idea that something might be happening on their phone.
So how did we get here? It’s clear that the need for young people to be constantly connected electronically is a direct result of the isolation they experienced during the COVID pandemic. Normal adolescent social growth was interrupted when many schools were closed, and students went to remote learning. We can argue whether that was a good idea or not but there is no question that socialization was stunted. Kids couldn’t hang out and the phone was the only means of getting together. Fast forward to now and the pattern of communicating by phone has become firmly embedded in teen culture. Rather than a means to an end, cellphone usage has essentially become a way of life for too many students.
The challenge today for School administrators is more how to effectively manage cellphone use rather than trying to ban them altogether. That ship has sailed. Why not enact policies that would be a compromise between an outright prohibition and the unlimited use of cellphones? Just as most adults have learned to shut off their phones while attending plays and concerts, students could be taught when it’s appropriate to use their phones and when it’s not. Policies might include balancing the tradeoffs between distractions and benefits — maybe having phone pouches in classrooms or letting students take out their devices under certain circumstances like class activities, hall passing, or during lunch periods. Whatever the management policy ends up being, it must be robust, consistent, and most of all, enforced.
One of the biggest obstacles facing schools that want to clamp down on cellphone use are parents. Any restrictive phone policy must consider potential backlash from parents who want to be able to contact their kids at all times. And that is a legitimate concern given the number of school shootings that are occurring each year. But, just as students will have to learn to comply with a more restrictive cellphone management program, so also will parents have to understand that their ability to contact their children during school hours will have limits.
With school choice now a reality, schools need to move toward creating a reasonable student cell phone policy. Parents who want to see a positive classroom learning atmosphere for their children will evaluate schools on how they will deal with this issue. Failure to make changes will result in parents transferring their kids to other systems that have the will to do it.
