Around the country, states are passing bans on cell phones in schools. Thirty-five states now have some sort of restriction—either all day or just during instructional time. Policymakers are quickly realizing that the best policies are ones that don’t turn teachers into cops, so expect more total rather than partial bans. Teachers, for their part, generally—and understandably—like the bans. Public support is also rising. One story that sticks with me: a Virginia teacher thanked Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration after his executive order banning phones in schools, saying, “thank you for giving us our kids back.” (There was a brief attempt at partisan pushback on Youngkin’s ban policy—because we live in stupid negative-polarization times—but the popularity of the policy quickly settled the matter even among people who otherwise did not support the governor.)
Around the country the bipartisan expansion of restrictions and bans is being hailed as a big victory by everyone from Jonathan Haidt to the NEA. It feels like a long-overdue pushback against toxic, addictive apps that Silicon Valley foisted on young people (and the rest of us). And at one level, it is progress. Social media in particular seems to be metastasizing a range of social ills. It’s a huge problem.
But in schools, we should also see these bans for what they are: surrender.
We have nothing on offer to compete with phones, so we’re banning them.
What schools offer just isn’t compelling enough to win kids’ attention. As a teacher remarked to me, you’ll always have some students checked out for various reasons, but overall good teachers don’t have boring classrooms. The problem is we don’t have enough of those classrooms. Phones didn’t create that problem, but they revealed—and then amplified—it.
Of course, phones aren’t the only thing we ban or meter out for young people. Cars, alcohol, drugs, and sex are examples of others. (At Bellwether, we recently looked at the incoherent patchwork of laws around those policies.) Age limits can make sense, and I’m not troubled by some phone bans or social media restrictions for young people.
But with AI bearing down on us—technology so compelling it makes today’s smartphones look like Atari’s Space Invaders—we need to ask: how can schools compete with that? What will be engaging enough to draw kids in? What will offer relationships that matter more than ones available through AI? What will make the struggle of learning something new feel like the more attractive option?
These are not easy questions. But they’re urgent. Right now, we’re not winning against new tech. We’re losing. And over time, you can’t ban your way out of that.
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