In schools across the United States, student scores are about to majorly decline — on Snapchat, that is. In a wave of policy sparked by Florida’s state legislature last year, 2024 has seen over 15 states pass mandates cracking down on student cell phone use. 

Whether calling on districts to limit or completely ban smartphones during the school day, the new measures are all part of a nationwide effort to promote education and end the era of the technology-addicted “screenager.” 

But these outcomes are only possible if schools can keep enforcing the bans.

Back-to-school season is winding down, and the promise of phone restrictions may soon be clouded by school systems’ failure to implement them. As parents push back on the policies and students devise creative ways to sneak their devices into class, restricting student phone use continues to be an uphill battle for schools.

Giving in to this pressure, however, would be a mistake. At the risk of sounding like the most uncool young person ever, phone bans are worth fighting for — and lawmakers must provide schools with the tools to do so.

At their core, phone bans are about more than just student learning. The measures are an urgent response to a stark reality: Kids are not the same as they were before COVID-19. With the online world now irreparably merged with their real lives, young people are averaging a screentime up to a whopping nine hours a day. 

It shouldn’t come as a shock, then, that America’s youth currently faces a national mental health crisis, and experts cite cell phones as a critical factor. Just this summer, growing concerns about young people prompted the U.S. Surgeon General to call for tobacco-esque warning labels on social media platforms.

These effects carry into schools. Eighty-five percent of teachers agree that the “ever-swiping nature” of sites such as TikTok has impacted students’ attention span, with 1 in 5 teachers reporting being unable to spend over 10 minutes on a lesson without students getting distracted. And while the government doesn’t have much of a say in how parents choose to manage their children’s at-home screen time, it should be held responsible for mitigating phone use in public schools.

Despite this becoming a worse issue in recent years, cell phones were a detriment to learning long before the pandemic. How did anyone ever expect kids’ developing brains to choose classwork over the constant dopamine hits of Instagram and TikTok? Modern attitudes, often in favor of giving young people more agency, severely underestimate the power these addictive devices have over even the most disciplined kids. 

That’s why it’s time for schools’ approach toward cell phones to go beyond a few inconsistent warnings that vary from teacher to teacher. For the sake of their overall well-being, kids need — and deserve — coordinated intervention from the adults in charge, taking the form of school-wide cell phone restrictions.

Don’t get me wrong, though: Despite this talk about rules and discipline, it’s not like we proponents of smartphone bans think kids should have their eyes glued to the board at all times. Wandering around in the halls? Messing with your friends while they fall asleep in class? All necessary parts of getting through a dull six-hour school day. 

But the fun of goofing off in class is that it requires you to get creative with very little stimulation — something that phones have ruined. Armed with only a pen and paper, students were once able to overcome classroom boredom simply by passing notes. I’m sure some older Gen Zers still remember the middle school thrill of watching your friend hover over a piece of paper, scribble something outlandish, then pass it along for you to sneakily unfold before the teacher caught on. 

How could texting in class ever compare?

Phones deprive kids of the everyday magic (and tangible social development benefits) of being thrown together in a classroom and forced to interact with others. Now, a student who arrives early to class has no need to chat with their neighbors; they can just Snapchat their friends from across the hall.

If anything, phones have only eroded positive connections between students, transforming in-school bullying into something far more public and inescapable. Growing up, I cannot tell you how many times I’d see phones used in school to film someone picking their nose, going to the bathroom or getting into a fight (seriously, I can think of three different instances for each). This doesn’t even include the most concerning problem arising from student cell phone use: minors using social media to circulate explicit and illegal images of their classmates.

While teenagers’ cruelty may never fully go away, its permanence can. Students should be able to go to school without worrying about being the subject of spreadable footage that will last forever.

Compare this to a school environment without phones. The New York Times’ Natasha Singer found such a place in Timber Creek High School, one of the Orange County public schools that implemented a strict ban on all phone use during the school day. 

“Dozens sat in small groups, animatedly talking with one another. Others played pickleball on makeshift lunchtime courts,” Singer reported.

Singer’s observations confirm what should be so intuitive: To take away phones is to bring back conversation, amiability and good-old-fashioned fun into the school day.

While this all sounds very pleasant, phone bans ultimately won’t transform schools into some kind of utopian landscape. Implementing these measures poses real challenges.

Yes, accommodations will be necessary for students with after-school jobs or family responsibilities. (This could, perhaps, involve allowing said student to have their phone for a 10-minute period each day). And, as with any other policy, teachers must be vigilant to avoid discriminatory enforcement among their students.

Most challenging, however, is reassuring all of the parents who are against phone bans. With many arguing that their child should be reachable in an emergency event like a school shooting, parental concerns have caused some school districts to reintroduce phones back into the classroom.

But phone bans may actually make students safer. Most notably, their mental health benefits can help proactively prevent such tragedies from ever occurring. Even if a school shooting was to take place, phones put kids in more danger due to risks such as spreading misinformation or overloading emergency phone lines.

Of course there will be challenges to implementing phone bans. But as young people struggle in a post-pandemic world, we can’t afford to backtrack on these policies. Phone bans are a simple change to protect kids’ mental health, education and social development — which is why, despite the thought and effort that goes into enforcing them, these policies are worth fighting for.

Most promising about these mandates, however: In a polarized country, where education has been consistently weaponized to advance political culture wars, phone bans have received significant bipartisan support. 

For the first time in a while, it seems that adults might just be capable of working together to shape a better future for the younger generation.

Samantha Denecour is a fourth-year English and political science combined major and columnist for The News. She can be reached at [email protected].