Cell Phones at School 2024
For anyone reading this, chances are that you’ve seen headlines and developed your own hunches about smartphones and social media. As a head of school, I’ve taken a stance since 2019 that asks students to hand in phones at the school day’s start, and I maintain that position as we enter the 2024-25 school year. Five years ago, that decision could be described as inspired, necessary, or ridiculous depending on who was weighing in. In the wake of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, many schools, and by consequence their families, are now also wading into the waters of smartphone-free school days. To all of them, I will offer two things, a brief reassuring anecdote and a glimpse into the thinking that led to the phone decision at the Robert Louis Stevenson School in NYC.
First, the reassurance. It is an understatement to say that forward-looking policies must confront controversy. If you can imagine a phone-free policy in a high school, disagreement at the outset was more often from students. By June 2024, though, a Stevenson student completed a project and arrived at agreement with Haidt’s Anxious Generation charge, essentially: pull back on the smartphones and push more into play. In line with my own 2019 policy decision, that student’s conclusion seems like an easy one to applaud. The telling thing and reassuring reality, though, is that the student conclusion was not an isolated one, and the student’s peer advice did not fall on deaf ears. In fact, what other students have told me boils down to this admission: they want to learn at school, and they realize that smartphones interfere with that learning. Consistent with that student thinking, we continue to ask students to turn in their phones at the day’s start at Stevenson. Beyond that student advice, the following describes some of the thinking that led to and reinforces Stevenson policy.
As I launched a new policy in the fall of 2019, I addressed digital technology and screen time in light of Common Sense Media's contemporaneous report, and I am re-sharing that here with some updates. Obviously, our view of digital technology today is forever changed following the pandemic's disruption with so many of us having been forced into digital interactions. While we work to make sense of the recent years, though, we can lean on pre- and early-pandemic resources and approaches to help us with school decisions.
As digital technology develops, so, too, do our related practices and habits. From parents and educators alike some questions about the use of digital technology seem to arise frequently: what are they doing on the device? Are they ever not on the device? Is this an addiction? Although the technology development is rapid, we fortunately have more and more data to inform our thinking about such questions and our decisions with teens.
As one starting point, I recommend Anya Kamenetz's The Art of Screen Time. Anya, who joined us at Stevenson as the book launched, provides a measured commentary on digital technology use that helps digest the data and come to terms with both well-meaning concerns and 21st-century realities. Ultimately, she boils down her recommendation to a technology version of Michael Pollan's approach to food: "Enjoy screens. Not too much. Mostly with others." If you're looking for a good read, this deserves a spot on the list.
The message in Kamenetz's book is a reassuring one, but persistent concerns are also understandable. If you have observed a teenager wholly engrossed in mobile device use, many questions may come to mind. You might also feel a need for caution with teens and technology. I previously acknowledged that the weight of such questions continues to be greater than the clarity of our data. Questions remain, but we are getting to a point with more confidence. When it comes to questioning whether social media and smartphones are actually pushing negative change, Jean Twenge addressed multiple alternative explanations. Spoiler: the smartphones and social media remain concerns. Prior to that 2023 Twenge post, other reports were leading us in the same direction.
Common Sense Media's 2019 report on teen and tween media included several key findings. Among them, some standouts were (a) that teens spend an average of nearly 7.5 hours of daily screen time (NOT including time used for school work) and (b) that teen use of digital devices is almost entirely an act of consumption, as opposed to one that leverages the affordances of technology to create their own content (Note that I can happily think of many Stevenson students who create music, film, and other digital content). Where do we stand now? If you guessed that the number increased beyond the 2019 report, then your guess would be consistent with the 2020 report.
When we see such numbers, it makes sense to also wonder how that time is being spent and what is the impact of such use. In fact, it's important for us to look at the numbers in that way, thereby focusing on the ways in which screens are being used and not simply on the fact that they are being used. In addition to school use, digital technology can play an important role for teen socialization--a role that became a heightened reality for many adults during the pandemic, as well. As the adults and professionals supporting these teens, our task is one of guiding teens such that technology is advantageous, rather than detrimental, in their lives. That’s where our decisions must be more clearly rooted in specific contexts or tasks.
Looking back to a 2016 report, Common Sense Media found that 72% of teens felt a need to immediately respond to texts or other messages and notifications. Coupled with that finding, only 1/3 of teens were found to even occasionally attempt to reduce their time on digital devices. In other words, many teens acknowledged the impact of device use on their behaviors, but far fewer demonstrated any effort to reduce the impact.
That concern aligns with Jonathan Haidt's findings in The Anxious Generation. Haidt discusses how constant connectivity and social media use contribute to heightened anxiety and depression among teens. He emphasizes the need to understand and mitigate the mental health impacts of excessive screen time, which mirrors our observations at Stevenson and supports the importance of structured digital practices.
What does this mean for us? At Stevenson, our approach to technology is one that considers such findings along with both technology's potential affordances and potential impact on our specific student body. That’s the context and task consideration to which I referred earlier. On the one hand, Stevenson embraces digital technology through such things as a 1:1 laptop program, student email and online class management, Computer Science courses, digital film editing, and a computer game club. As a specific example from last year, a student spent weeks focused on 3D modeling in Computer Science, and he then applied those skills to create a neurotransmitter 3D model for his Neurobiology course. Outstanding work to say the least. Moving to the other hand, though, we do ask students to hand in their phones each day. Quite simply, what we observed prior to this policy is that smartphone interference makes exceptional work like that neurotransmitter model less likely to occur. Altogether then, our position is one that aims to open up students to more readily attend to the immediate social and academic context while also maintaining connections to 21st-century practices and topics.
Admittedly, the ban was not a decision that emerged quickly. In fact, my own stance was initially a more comprehensive embrace of technology, seeking and trusting in its affordances for learning. Nonetheless, following several years of different iterations of device use, we found, among other things, that our students had a persistent experience: a perceived need to immediately respond to messages and a general, frequent distraction with the devices. That similar journey from technological embrace to device ban has been shared elsewhere, and in our school–one designed to dually attend to emotional and academic development–the smartphone drawbacks far outweigh the benefits.
To parents–if you are wondering what you might do at home, consider the following. First, keep in mind Kamenetz's "Enjoy screens. Not too much. Mostly with others." If we recall the average teen spending 7.5 hours on screens for non-school activity each day, we can be confident about selecting some times to disconnect. Going further, though, keep in mind that digital devices also can support positive social connections and promote interest exploration. Instead of focusing on just how much time is spent on screens, try to understand how the devices are being used by your child. Said differently, we can expect digital technology to remain in our lives, so our task is to improve the ways in which we use it. I suggest conversations with your child about the function of devices and the extent to which they are helping or hindering life experiences (e.g. staying on a device until 2am each night is not helping!). Then create a plan to try structuring family screen/device use. No matter what routes you and your family try, consider using cell phones as an opportunity to model decision making with a difficult issue.
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Chris Ongaro, EdD
Head of School