The dangers of childhood cell phone use are becoming evident to the vast majority of American parents.
The Commonwealth of Virginia is taking a leading role in dealing with that problem.
As someone who has followed this issue for years, first as a teacher in a Maryland public high school and then as a writer, I find the most surprising development is the sudden popularity of attempts to remove cell phones from schools. A decade ago, when I was still in the classroom, any attempt to curtail cell phone use was met with a loud chorus of parental disapproval and disdain.
Broad Public Support for a New Policy
That situation has changed. A September 13, 2024, article in The Washington Post states, “About 7 in 10 voters with children in kindergarten through 12th grade support banning cellphones in Virginia public schools (69 percent), including during lunch and class breaks. More than 4 in 10 (45 percent) say they “strongly” support the cellphone restrictions. Support is roughly the same among registered voters in the state overall at 67 percent and people who don’t have kids in kindergarten through 12th grade at 66 percent.”
Such high levels of support indicate that this is one of the rare issues in today’s polarized political landscape that is truly bi-partisan.
However, there is more than political expediency behind the state’s position. A recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal offers a look “behind the curtain” at the thinking behind the new regulations. Author Suzanne Youngkin-wife of Virginia’s governor-referred to the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Mrs. Youngkin and Dr. Haidt also participated in a videotaped conversation that went into greater depth.
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Mrs. Youngkin begins the article with a reference to Dr. Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Then, she refers to some harrowing statistics.
“In 2011 only 35% of American households owned smartphones. By 2015 that figure grew to over 70%. The percentage of high-schoolers using social media ‘nearly every day’ jumped from 51% in 2008 to 82% in 2015. Covid increased this overreliance on screens. Teens spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media.”
A Serious Situation
These trends carry consequences that Mrs. Youngkin referred to as “disastrous.” Since 2010, which is roughly the date that “smartphones” became all but ubiquitous, diagnoses of clinical depression have increased by 167% for adolescent girls and 161% for boys. This condition has resulted in the suicide rate rising 167% for girls and 91% for boys.
Dr. Haidt refers to many graphs in his book as “hockey sticks.” This term is a kind of shorthand for the fact that the rates of depression and suicide were relatively low and steady over decades. Then, the graph suddenly “shoots up” in a more vertical direction. His research is consistent. Every one of the harmful changes happened in or soon after 2010.
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Those are facts that no parent-liberal or conservative-should ignore.
To deal with the situation, Dr. Haidt makes four simple suggestions to America’s parents. As the WSJ article stated, they are, “No smartphones before high school, no social media before age 16, no phones in school, and more independence and free play in the real world.”
The Schools’ Role
Of the four suggestions, three are primarily in the parents’ hands. Indeed, many conservative parents have followed some form of that guidance for years. Many of those responsible parents have been frustrated by the fact that their children have access to their friends’ phones at lunch or on the school bus.
The remaining point, though, is in the hands of the schools, and that is the focus of Virginia’s new policy. A state government press release sums up the change.
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“On July 9, Governor Glenn Youngkin issued Executive Order 33 to help bring cell phone-free education to Virginia schools…. Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order also charged the Virginia Department of Education with defining what a cell phone-free education means in the Commonwealth and to develop guidance on policies for school divisions to adopt to remove cell phones from instructional time in our K-12 public schools.”
A Serious Plan
The Commonwealth released Guidance for Cell Phone-Free Education on September 16. All of Virginia’s public schools are required to write a compliance plan and implement that plan by January 1, 2025. The twenty-five-page document is far too detailed to go into cover thoroughly here. However, one remarkable aspect of the plan is that Virginia intends to do what it says. That much is apparent when looking at three of the definitions provided in the document.
“‘Cell Phone-Free Education’ means the age-appropriate elimination or restriction of cell phones and other personal electronic communication devices in public schools.”
Notice that the definition does not mention cell phones being allowed between classes or during lunch. That rule becomes even more explicit in the following definition.
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“‘Bell-to-Bell’ means from when the first bell rings at the start of the school day to begin instructional time until the dismissal bell rings at the end of the academic school day. ‘Bell-to-bell’ includes lunch and time in between class periods.”
Nor can the students circumvent the rule by placing the phones in their pockets. They must be “stored,” which Virginia defines as “not being carried on the student’s person, including not in the student’s pocket.”
Of course, developing guidelines and plans are only the first step. The far more crucial part is implementation. A plan on the shelf gathering dust is useless unless it establishes clear rules that administrators, teachers and the rest of the “school community” enforce. One additional point is clear: ultimately, the administrators cannot enforce rules that the parents don’t support.
Contributing to Success
Even the figures cited by The Washington Post indicate that about thirty percent of parents oppose the idea. That may appear insignificant, but it is not. During my years in education, I learned that a single parent can make life difficult for an entire school’s staff. If those charged with enforcing the new rules sense that they do not have the support of their supervisors and the public, they will, sooner or later, give up the fight.
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Therefore, it is crucial that the parents of the “good” kids-those who obey the rules-indicate their support for the new policies. This does not require mass public meetings. A pleasant note or a supportive word spoken at an appropriate time during the school’s annual “open house” or “parents’ night” can go a long way to creating the desired atmosphere. Ask your friends to do the same thing.
Likewise, parents in other states might want to contact their children’s schools and respectfully voice their opinions, informing the local administrators of the new Virginia policy and its popularity. This plan deserves widespread support.
Photo Credit: © Xavier Lorenzo- stock.adobe.com