From the early times of formal education until very recently, teenagers managed to attend schools without smartphones. When most of us here were growing up, despite a lack of such devices, there were no issues with keeping in touch with parents during the day when necessary — there were pay phones and, in an emergency, the administrative office. Yet somehow it is now taken as a given that children absolutely must be glued to their phones throughout the school day.
Common sense would suggest that it is a distraction for students to fiddle around on their phones during class, sending texts and watching TikTok videos, when they should be paying attention to their teachers. And it can’t be helping the problem of social-media addiction among teens, which is contributing to the young-adult mental-health crisis. But as reasonable as it would seem to keep cellphones out of classrooms, a policy that Florida has implemented, a number of school districts have been reluctant to take that step, given the blowback and limited research into the effects of such bans.
A new bill, introduced by Senators Tom Cotton and Tim Kaine, would attempt to change that. Under the legislation, Congress would authorize $5 million in spending to allow participating school districts to obtain secure containers for students to store their phones during school hours. The schools would need to have a system in place for emergencies and for parents and children to communicate with each other. The Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, would then study the effects of removing phones from classrooms on student academic achievement, educational outcomes, mental health, and behavior. At the end of the research period, the departments would submit a report to Congress that would be made publicly available.
Given the mental-health crisis among teens and the learning loss experienced during the pandemic from which many students have not recovered, if cellphone usage in schools is a contributing factor, we should know about it. While we believe that the ultimate decisions should be left up to state and local governments, the Cotton-Kaine proposal is a modest step to provide more clarity to the issue. Congress should pass it.