08/21/2024
Unfettered phone usage at school is hurting our kids and depriving them of connection. But it’s not too late to make a change!
This is a great read from the Atlantic Monthly by Russell Shaw, head of Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC.
In the early 1960s, when my parents were in high school, they received free sampler packs of ci******es on their cafeteria trays. To the cigarette companies, it made sense: Where better to find new customers than at schools, whose students, being children, hadn’t yet established brand loyalties? This is hard to fathom in 2024.
I believe that future generations will look back with the same incredulity at our acceptance of phones in schools. The research is clear: The dramatic rise in adolescent anxiety, depression, and su***de correlates closely with the widespread adoption of smartphones over the past 15 years. Although causation is debated, as a school head for 14 years, I know what I have seen: Unfettered phone usage at school hurts our kids. It makes them less connected, less attentive, less resilient, and less happy. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written, smartphone-based life “alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.” It is time to remove phones from schools.
At the entrance to our high school is an indoor amphitheater we call the Forum. The space acts simultaneously as a living room, dining room, library, and town square. When making my rounds during the school day, I will often stand at the top of the Forum and observe our students in their natural habitat. A group of sophomores plays hacky sack in one corner while a lone senior leans against the wall reading Moby-Dick, highlighter in hand. Students share a pizza. A duo prepares for an upcoming chemistry quiz. It is a hive of activity—one visitor to our school described the atmosphere as having an “intellectual crackle.”
That was a decade ago. I still make my rounds, and yes, many of the above activities still unfold in the Forum, but they are being crowded out by students looking at their phones. The students are sitting next to one another. They may even be interacting. But more and more, their attention is on their screens. Watching phones take over the Forum brings to mind a beetle infestation in a forest. At first, just one or two trees show signs of damage. Then, the next thing you know, the forest is a less healthy, less vibrant place than it once was.
I’ve watched students who struggle to make friends not learn how to, because they can retreat into the short-term safety of their phones rather than tolerate the discomfort that often precedes finding one’s way into a conversation. I’ve watched some of the spontaneity that makes school fun diminish, because students are less tuned in to what’s happening around them. I’ve watched our community become weakened by the ubiquitous presence of phones.
Good conversations are hard—they are messy and complex and require attention and careful listening. Phones teach our students to abandon the eyes of the person they’re speaking to in order to glance at a newly arrived text or Snapchat message. They privilege simplistic dichotomies that can garner “likes” rather than nuanced understanding, which requires the patience to turn to a topic again and again, suspending judgment. They undermine the very skills we aim to impart: the ability to engage deeply, to hold complexity, to build meaningful community.
I am not a Luddite—I believe in the ability of technology to enrich our lives. And yet I believe that those who are responsible for the well-being of children can no longer ignore the reality that phones in schools are doing more harm than good—distracting students, isolating them, and creating unhealthy echo chambers that undermine critical thinking.
To be clear, adults are not setting a great example. In a middle-school graduation speech a few years ago, I encouraged our students to put down their phones. Their parents applauded. And then, without missing a beat, the students called out, “You put down yours!” We, too, are often glued to our devices, distracted at meals, at sporting events, while standing in line. Adults would do well to set their own limits on phone use.
Some people argue that phones prepare students for the pressures of our digital world—one they’ll eventually have to navigate anyway. Even if this is true—and I am not sure it is—it is an unintentional aftereffect that happens at the expense of building community. Others argue that in an age of school shootings, it’s important for parents to be able to reach their children at a moment’s notice. When we practice lockdown drills, like most other schools, our security team instructs students to sit quietly—to silence and put down their phones. School shootings are a growing and terrifying reality. At the same time, far more young people die by su***de each year than in school shootings.
While I understand the parental impulse to know you can communicate with your child instantly and constantly, protecting children’s mental health is far more urgent than keeping tabs on them. (In fact, developmentally appropriate freedom from parental oversight is vital for healthy adolescence—but that’s a topic for another day.) And giving them a respite from technology so that they can more deeply connect with themselves and with others is one crucial way to protect their mental health.
In a world in which information is readily available and AI is evolving at a stunning pace, schools must focus on teaching attention, navigating ambiguity, encouraging independent thinking, and nurturing communities. These essential tasks are hindered by phones, which fragment attention and weaken our capacity for genuine connection.
Our school already bans phones for pre-K through eighth graders, and starting this fall we will no longer allow phones in the high school. I expect that some of our students (and even some parents) will vigorously protest this change. And yet I believe that most will grow to embrace it, discovering that their experience of school takes on a new depth and vitality.
For too long, children all over the world have been guinea pigs in a dangerous experiment. The results are in. We need to take phones out of schools. Let’s reclaim our school spaces and ensure that our students learn not just from devices but from one another and the world around them. So much of the magic of childhood happens in unmediated community. We must not deprive our children of that gift.
Get the resources you need to advocate for change:
PhoneFreeSchools
Jonathan Haidt
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