How to ban smartphones in schools
The tradeoffs of tech restrictions.
There is a growing consensus that students would learn better in school if they were not watching TikTok videos during classroom instruction.
In these bitterly divided times, it’s nice to find things we agree on.
But the term “smartphone ban” is practically meaningless without getting into specifics, and not everyone agrees on the specifics.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs recently vetoed a bill that would have required public schools to create and enforce policies to restrict social media usage during the school day. Hobbs wrote in her veto letter, “This legislation establishes an unnecessary mandate for an issue schools are already addressing.”
If a school wants to ban smartphones, it must answer the following questions:
Ban for the entire day? Or just during class time?
The main goal is to keep students engaged in class. But if students don’t check their phones during class, they will definitely want to check their phones during breaks. Some schools might want to encourage in-person social interaction by trying to prevent smartphones from being part of the school day entirely.
How strict of a ban? And how to enforce it?
Almost every school has a rule that students are not allowed to be on social media during lessons. But a low level of administrative enforcement puts the onus on individual teachers to create and enforce their own policies. This might work in certain schools, but in other schools it turns into a free-for-all. Administrators need to decide what tactics to use. I will review the five most common policies below.
As for the question of why to ban smartphones, the answer is that they are an irresistible diversion. Students have always found diversions, but a smartphone loaded with social media is too powerful to be left unregulated in the hands of the youth. Matt Yglesias recently wrote a good post on Substack titled, “Smartphones in schools are bad.” He recalls his own high school days when students played video games on graphing calculators. A worthy diversion tool, indeed. But a graphing calculator doesn’t compare to a smartphone app that combines instant messaging with infinite feeds of short videos algorithmically designed to mesmerize people.
Here are the five most commonly used smartphone ban policies. None of them are perfect.
Willpower rule
This is the most lenient policy. Basically it says, “students should not look at their phones during classroom instruction.” The upside of this policy is that it encourages students to exercise self-control. The downside of this policy is that it doesn’t work.
Even if teachers are vigilant about enforcing this policy, it can still distract from lessons. What if a student looks at the phone again, after being told to put it away? Does the teacher walk across the room to take away the phone? In this scenario, the whole class will be watching intently to see if the drama escalates. The lesson is already disrupted. Five minutes later, the same thing will happen again.
Yondr pouches
These are cloth, handheld pouches that can be locked magnetically to prevent the phone from being used. Students retain possession of their locked-up phones. Yondr pouches are sometimes used at music concerts to prevent patrons from filming the show. It seems like a neat solution for schools, but there are logistical challenges.
For one thing, the pouches can be hacked. If you don’t know how to break open a Yondr pouch, search it on TikTok or YouTube and you will find many helpful tutorials. The students who would comply with a less strict phone policy will comply with this one; the students who really want to use their phones will hack the pouches.
There’s also the hassle of assigning Yondr pouches to students (many of whom will “forget” to bring them to school) and the logistical problem of lock/unlock responsibilities. Do teachers have the magnetic locking device, or does it happen at the front office? Each option creates an annoyance for whoever is assigned to verify compliance.
Another problem with this policy is that it’s expensive. After the initial cost of the Yondr pouches and magnetic locking/unlocking devices, a school will need to keep buying replacement pouches as they get lost and broken.
“Away for the Day”
Scottsdale Unified K-8 requires cellphones to be turned off and kept in student backpacks. This policy depends entirely on the enforcement efforts. If faculty and staff are united in taking a zero-tolerance approach, where a violation is met with the phone being taken away and delivered to administration, this policy could work. But if the faculty adopts a more lenient approach, where a violation is met with a verbal reminder, the violations will snowball into something that resembles a free-for-all. Students are likely to keep testing the enforcement boundaries, and it will be difficult to maintain consistent, schoolwide enforcement throughout the year.
Cellphone lockers
This policy says, “no smartphones allowed on campus.” If you bring it to school, it must be placed in a locked cellphone locker in the front office. The parents sign a contract agreeing to this policy at the beginning of the year. This policy is best for the middle school ages, I think. The best thing about this policy is that it completely removes smartphones from the school environment. The enforcement is handled up front, without the in-school disruptions. Under this policy, any single violation would be a big deal, obviously warranting a referral to administration.
The biggest pushback against complete smartphone bans like this one will be that many parents want to be able to contact their kids directly during the school day. One possible compromise is to allow dumbphones, but this would complicate the enforcement efforts.
Classroom phone pockets
This is a tidy system where students enter a classroom and immediately place their smartphones in wall-mounted pockets. Phones stay in the pockets for the duration of class. Students can grab their phones after class.
Enforcement of this policy is less disruptive because any non-compliance can be addressed and resolved in the first few minutes of the class period.
I think this policy is better for high school students. Distractions are removed from classroom instruction, but students retain access to their phones in case they need to communicate with work or check emails.
The downside of this policy is that students have free access to social media and video games during passing periods, breaks, and lunch. This drastically reduces in-person socialization, but that’s how it goes in society as a whole these days.
A few concluding thoughts.
It’s interesting that Gov. Hobbs vetoed the social media restriction bill, because as Yglesias points out in the post linked above, other states have passed similar bills — with the support of the teachers’ unions.
I don’t think a vague statewide mandate is necessary. But most teachers in Arizona, I’m guessing, would support better enforcement of behavior policies in general, and more consistent enforcement of smartphone policies specifically.
Societal norms play a huge part in this as well.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt recently published his book The Anxious Generation. He did a media blitz after publication, so many readers will be familiar with his conclusions that smartphones and social media are causing mental health problems for young people. I haven’t read his book yet, but I did read an excellent synopsis he published in The Atlantic: The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood.
His recommendations for new social norms are completely reasonable:
No smartphones before high school. (dumbphones are still available for purchase)
No social media before age 16.
Phone-free schools. (here’s some scientific evidence to back up his case)
More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
As Haidt explains, this is a collective action problem. Students want to be on social media all the time because that's where everyone else is hanging out. If we set new guidelines, together, we can help young people escape the traps of tech indulgence.
Thanks for reading!
Sent this to all the many teachers in my friends and family group. Thanks. Everyone needs help.
Great piece.