Momentum is building toward banning smartphones in New York schools amid mounting alarm about social media's toxic effects on children, but some students are skeptical about whether the move would actually work.
In New York City, the local education department allows individual schools to set policies on phones. Some make students store phones in secure pouches at the start of the school day, while others collect phones once students arrive. Yet others allow students to use phones only in hallways and during lunch.
But in practice, phones are ubiquitous distractions in many schools, according to parents, students and educators. Teachers said students are distracted by text messages in class, including in instances where their parents text them. Some said students seem to be going to the bathroom during class more than they used to, probably to check their phones. Online fights tend to boil over in classrooms and schoolyards because of social media.
In response, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it’s time to “liberate” students from their smartphones. She’s exploring imposing a ban on phones in schools after speaking with students and studying the effect of social media on mental health.
“To think that you need to have access to TikTok and scroll all day long when you're supposed to be learning geometry and chemistry, those are hard enough subjects anyhow,” Hochul said at a press conference with the New York Mental Health Association last week. “So let's let the young people be young people again [and] focus on school.”
On Monday, Hochul reached an agreement with state lawmakers restricting social media companies from using addictive algorithms on underage users.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks have both spoken favorably about banning smartphones from schools. While the city could enact its own policy, education department officials said they want to see the details of Hochul’s proposal first. She said she will introduce a bill restricting phones at schools this fall.
In interviews with Gothamist, students said they saw the rationale behind a ban, but they questioned the logistics.
“The thing about high schoolers, or just kids in general, is they will always find a way to overrule the rules you give them and find loopholes,” said Clementine McCoy, a junior at Grace Church School in Manhattan. “That's just a fact of life."
Gov. Kathy Hochul secured a deal to restrict social media's targeting of minors through addictive algorithms. .
Catrina Chen, a junior at Brooklyn Tech, said her school bans the use of phones during class, though some kids sneak them in anyway.
“If you don't want to pay attention, it's not my problem,” she said. “We're at an age where we should know what to do.”
Chen said it would make her classwork more difficult if she wasn’t allowed to access her phone, which she uses for online learning platforms and to text questions to classmates. She noted that students can also text or use social media on tablets and laptops. “A lot of things in the classroom are very dependent on technology,” she said.
Soliel Hayles, a senior at Medgar Evers Preparatory School in Brooklyn, said her school's current policy has resulted in a game of cat and mouse with educators.
“We used to use a decoy phone — give a phone but not their actual phone — because people didn’t feel comfortable in case there was an emergency,” said Hayles.
She added that she worried that tightening the rules would create “a lot of friction between the trust of the administration and the students.”
McCoy of Grace Church School said there would always be students who break the rules. “There's always going to be people hiding out in the [bathroom] stalls on their phone, people using their phones hidden in their backpacks,” she said. But she said she would support a ban, likening a school day without access to her phone to “a retreat.”
Speaking to reporters last week, Chancellor Banks said students he had talked to told him that taking smartphones away would be painful but worth it. “One of the kids said to me, 'some students will resist, but you should do it anyway because it's what's best for all of us,'” Banks said. “A person that's on drugs is not going to tell you to take their drugs away, but deep down they know they want somebody to help save them.”
Julia Bove, superintendent of the city's District 22, said at a press conference last week that schools that have added more restrictions on phone use have experienced decreases in violence.
Anna Waters, assistant principal at the Highbridge Green School in the Bronx, said students at her middle school already have to put their phones in locked pouches during the school day. But she said she hoped a ban would discourage parents from buying smartphones for their children in the first place. She noted that so many of the beefs that erupt in school start on social media.
At the same time, Waters said, phones have eroded students’ interpersonal skills and capacity to manage conflicts. “I think smartphones and access to social media [for] kids has been the number one biggest factor, even bigger than COVID, that has affected general emotional well-being,” she said.
And Julie Scelfo, founder and executive director of the group MAMA, or Mothers Against Media Addiction, applauded Hochul’s proposal to curtail smartphones in schools.
“Social workers have spotted children just openly watching Netflix in the middle of class,” she said. “Kids are online shopping. They're looking at porn. And now, unfortunately, with [artificial intelligence] programs … we're seeing cases where children are circulating sexually explicit images."
"So the way we can best support our teachers and our educators is by getting smart devices out of school so that children can use school hours for learning and interacting with their peers," Scelfo added.
