The Texas Legislature just banned K-12 students from using cellphones in school. Dozens of other states have taken steps to do the same. This is a good and needed step forward. It will help students to concentrate and learn, without pings and alerts and distractions.
For this simple step, much credit is due to the sociologist Jonathan Haidt, who started a school phone banning revolution with his book The Anxious Generation. But locking up personal phones is only the beginning.
Less discussed are the school-sponsored devices, starting in elementary school, which are increasingly replacing pen-and-paper learning, teacher-student interactions and, in some cases, recess.
Growing up in the 1980s, summer was my indulgent screen time for daytime movies and TV shows. These days, it’s the school year. Students in grades 1 through 12 now spend an average of 98 minutes on school-issued devices during the school day — more than 20% of instructional time — according to data reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The rise of screens in classrooms has done nothing to improve student performance in math, reading or science; if anything, it’s the opposite. A recent study from the United Nations concluded, “There is little robust evidence on digital technology’s added value in education.”
In fact, evidence is mounting that screen overuse has had a deleterious impact on attention spans, memory and relationships, especially in younger developmental stages.
The timelines of screen use and academic outcomes are uncanny. The widespread introduction of screens in schools came in the 2010s when lower-income students’ scores began to nosedive. Screentime expanded dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, when student scores, for a variety of reasons, dropped further.
Our rapid adoption of technologies has surpassed our available safety controls. On a parent group chat I’m a part of, people report finding inappropriate images on school-sponsored iPads and Chromebooks. Someone’s daughter in kindergarten had stumbled on one while Googling something in her class.
Which raises the question: What or who is behind the push toward screen-based learning? Certainly screen use in the classroom shot up during COVID-19. Prior to that our public elementary school had a good old-fashioned computer lab that kids visited once a week.
In Texas, standardized tests have moved to a screen-based format, so test practice also occurs on screens. Overcrowded schools make recess unwieldy and silent screen time provides a tempting alternative. Then there’s the lure of education apps, which have their place, especially for gifted students or those struggling to keep up, but end up being a numbing filler throughout the day.
The big tech companies have been all too happy to comply with the shift to screens at school. As reported in The New York Times, “more than half the nation’s primary- and secondary-school students — more than 30 million children — use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs.” Nothing like product placement beginning with kindergartners.
The cumulative effect is that more and more of children’s school days are spent on screens, away from human interaction or textbooks. And it’s the cumulative effect where screen time is the most deleterious because of the human interaction it crowds out.
Like all things, the impact is disproportionately felt by our most vulnerable. The digital divide used to primarily be about lack of tech access for lower-income families. These days, it runs the opposite direction. Students from lower-education and lower-income households spend significantly more time on screens. Screen use in the classroom exacerbates the already prominent socioeconomic achievement gaps among kids.
But even well-off private schools pride themselves on the one-to-one device ratio between students and teachers starting in elementary school.
Even if screens are used judiciously, why dip our toes in shark-infested waters before it’s absolutely necessary?
Because kids have to be tech-savvy! Some people argue that schools are preparing kids for the future. I tend to believe the opposite. Whatever can be done on a screen is the easiest to be automated in our not so distant AI future.
Far better to get the basics of reading and math right; most American kids are below grade level. Far better to practice real human relationships in the classroom; goodness knows those are struggling, too.
Fortunately, changing this could be as easy as locking up phones. Schools should communicate a firm limit — say 30 minutes per day until middle school. Beyond that, the device isn’t used for classroom instruction by teachers or by students.
As an adult, I need accountability for my own screen use. Schools do too.
A cellphone ban in schools is common sense, low-hanging fruit, and congrats to our state for getting it right. But the issues around screens and schools go far deeper than cellphone bans.
As we move rapidly through summer, schools should agree upon the limits for screen use in the classroom and communicate those clearly to parents. If they don’t, perhaps the next session of the Texas Legislature can help nudge them in the right direction.