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A survey by Common Sense Census reveals that as of 2021, 43% of 8-to-12-year-olds own a smartphone, as do 88% of teens 13 to 18. The analysis also informs us that:
- the average teen spends a mind-boggling 8 hours and 39 minutes each day using electronic media.
- half of teenagers feel addicted to their phones.
- 78% check them hourly or more.
- Of those who have cellphones, 97% of teens report using them during the school day, mostly for nonacademic purposes.
This is anything but a new problem, however. The nation’s teachers have been competing with smartphones for years. A 2010 Pew Research Center study found that 90% of U.S. schools had some sort of smartphone ban. Of the teens surveyed,
- 62% said they could have their phones in school but not in class.
- 24% were not allowed to have phones on school grounds.
- Of those who attended a school with a total ban, 65% brought their phones to school anyway.
- While in class, 64% of teens said they had texted, and 25% had made or received a call.
The Damage
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in almost 80 countries every three years, tests 15-year-olds in math, reading, and science. The scores have been sinking over the years for a variety of reasons. Of late, COVID was a big factor. However, PISA has found a more ominous reason for the decline in scores: student smartphone usage.
PISA finds that students who spend less than one hour of “leisure” time on digital devices a day at school scored about 50 points higher in math than students whose eyes are glued to their screens more than five hours a day. In a comprehensive piece in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson notes that the gap held even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors. He also discloses, “For comparison, a 50-point decline in math scores is about four times larger than America’s pandemic-era learning loss in that subject.”
Cellphone screens also create a general distraction, even for students who aren’t always looking at them. Andreas Schleicher, the director of the PISA survey, maintains that students who reported feeling distracted by their classmates’ digital habits scored lower in math. Additionally, 45% of students said that they felt “nervous” or “anxious” when they didn’t have their digital devices near them.
In sum, students who spend more time involved with their phones do worse in school, distract other students, and feel worse about their lives.
Furthermore, smartphone usage prevents socialization among students during the school day. Addictive relationships are also associated with mobile devices, as well as mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and disrupted sleep. As Great Schools explains, “Neuroscience tells us that tweens’ and teens’ developing brains make them especially vulnerable to both addiction and mental health crises.”
Play and exercise are also affected by the use of electronics. A Danish study published in 2021 revealed that a four-week ban on phones during recess significantly increased both the frequency and intensity of physical activity of children aged 10–14.
Also, in a 2016 study of nearly 25,000 U.S. teenagers, about 20% used screened devices (smartphones, tablets, or video games) more than five hours per day. That group was 43% more likely to be obese than participants who experienced less screen time.
What can schools do?
In a comprehensive piece written in June 2023, American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt makes a very strong case for phone-free schools. He writes that it’s helpful to think of phone restrictions on a scale from 1 to 5:
Level 1: Students can take their phones out during class, but only to use them for class purposes.
Level 2: Students can hold onto their phones but are not supposed to take them out of their pockets or backpacks at all during class time.
Level 3: Phone caddies in classrooms: Students put their phones into a wall pocket or storage.
Haidt suggests that the above are tepid at best and useless at worst, and then gets into more potent measures.
Level 4: Lockable pouches (such as those made by Yondr). Students are required to put their phone into their own personal pouch when they arrive at school, which is then locked with a magnetic pin (like the anti-theft tags used in clothing stores). Students keep the pouch with them but cannot unlock it until the end of the school day, when they are given access to a magnetic unlocking device.
Level 5: Phone lockers. Students lock their phones into a secure unit with many small compartments when they arrive at school. They keep their key and get access to the phone lockers again only when they leave school.
What can parents do?
Parents have the most important role to play. Some moms and dads justify providing their kids with a cellphone because they feel the need to be in immediate touch with them. This reason rings thin, however. Just as they have done since time immemorial, parents can call the school’s main office if they need to get a message relayed to their child.
At home, parents should not let their child have a smartphone till high school, and then curtail the time they spend on it. It’s no secret that children can access websites that are highly inappropriate – porn, excessive gore, etc. Why let them have unsupervised access to these sites?
Worth noting is that at this time, 33 states are suing Meta, alleging the tech giant has deliberately engineered its social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, to be addictive to children and teens.
Let children know you will be conducting surprise periodic checks to make sure they are not visiting sites they should be shunning. If a parent suspects deleted history, they should let their kid be phoneless or a spell. Parents should also encourage their child’s friends’ parents to restrict usage.
Another alternative would be to give your child a “dumb phone,” which only allows texting and phone calls. These phones have no easy access to the internet, no social media, and a lower risk of inappropriate content.
As a public school teacher from the 1970s to the aughts, I was involved with cellphone use in class only toward the end of my career. It wasn’t a big problem with my students. I simply told them that they couldn’t use them in class. And for the most part – to the best of my knowledge – they didn’t.
But one girl didn’t put her device away after a warning, so I took it from her and told her she’d get it back after class. At that point she became enraged and got a hold of my hair and was pulling it mercilessly. Trying to stay calm, I told her to let go. She didn’t. So, with my head on the way to the floor, I was forced to end the skirmish with an elbow uppercut to her chin.
In retrospect, I realize that what I did was akin to ripping a needle out of a junkie’s arm mid-fix.
Children’s use of smartphones needs to be controlled. Immediately.
Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
Can’t wait to see the PISA test results in 2040 for students in America. Hopefully, their IQ does not fall below 75. Otherwise, we are in trouble because very few will be working. You see most will be on Social Security disability sitting at home with their I-Phone 35 playing games, waiting for their next direct deposit from Social Security.
A little humor for the evening.
Not mentioned, EVER, is the fact that every major urban riot, smash and grab, street takeover, etc., is either coordinated thru, or exacerbated by “smart phones”… and how influential to these “young skulls full of mush” the videos of these crimes are.
And yet NEVER do you hear anyone question “Should some people be denied access to smart phones?”
No, it’s just “here… you have a Constitutional Right to a very powerful tool, regardless of how stupid you are or how many times you’ve used it to destroy America” (the data’s all archived)
“Phone control”….? nary a peep.
I’m not sure if “smart phones” are totally to blame for so many IDIOTS roaming our Nation! I was checking out at a local Dollar General and amazingly, my purchases and tax came to exactly $13! I gave the 20 something year old cashier a $50 but she entered it as only a $5! I could see the panic on her face as she pondered the seemingly IMPOSSIBLE mathematical process of “what now”!! I told her “you owe me back $37”! She said “are you sure”??? I said “Yes, I’m sure”! She then called the MANAGER!! The FORTY something MANAGER was informed of the situation and asked me “Are you sure”!! I said “Yes, ma’am I’m sure – it’s $37.00”!! She then took out her SMART PHONE and found the CALCULATOR app and entered the $50 minus $13 and lo and behold – the answered conjured up by the SMART PHONE was $37.00!!! She said “yep, he’s right $37”!! After the cashier gave my my change she looked at me like I was a two headed alien and said “really, did you just do that in your head”?? I just smiled and said “yes I did”! It’s really SAD the mental abilities that so many people have these days or maybe they have the ABILITIES and they were never EDUCATED as to their USAGE!!
A similar thing happened to me at a major coffee retailer.. Added something like $1.37 to my payment so I would receive a five back. The barista required a calculator to determine my correct change.
To be fair, this sort of thing has happened for years. Quite a few years. On the way back to school from a FL spring break, back during the Carter administration, we pulled into a gas station. This was pre-self-service and the attendant put $11 worth of gas in the car. One of the guys handed him a twenty, he went inside to the til and came back with $39. My buddy looked at it and said, “That’s not right.” The pump jockey said, yeah you’re right, went back in the station and came out with a twenty and handed it to my pal. The guy behind the wheel said, “Thanks man!” and we went merrily on our way.
There are a number of students who cannot add or subtract.. I have encountered retail clerks who had problems giving back change.
My word, what a story! “Did you do that in your head”? Amazing! Such stupidity makes me sad.
I know a teen who goes to bed with his phone in his hand and it’s still in his hand when he has his first cup of coffee. Tragic for everyone.
Digital puppet masters cut the visible strings on their dummies long ago.
They are surveillance devices with a variety of apps that ensure the weak never leave them behind.
None of this made sense until I read California Teachers Empowerment Network.
Did you need a penicillin shot afterward?
I was so pleased one time to see a mother, father and two kids at a restaurant with their heads bowed in prayer. How refreshing, but then I realized they were ALL checking their messages.
You see some young people sitting at a table and instead of talking to one another they are each texting or reading their phones. All alone while in a group. Just pathetic.
How could children’s use of smartphones be controlled by their parents when their parents themselves are unable to control their own use of smartphones? You see these parents and grand parents concentrating on their little boxes when they are shopping, eating, driving, walking, talking, in the stores, streets, restaurants, bars, cars, at doctors’ offices – and most probably doing their business in the bathroom too. They have been so absorbed by their little boxes that they didn’t notice that their children had become Hitler’s followers.
A lot of people let their phones take over their lives, especially with social media and games. It’s annoying and sometimes dangerous. I’ve seen people walk out into traffic with their face buried in their phone just obliviously texting away.
But in all fairness, phones are very useful for shopping, especially a store in a different location than you normally shop.. A lot of Home Depots, Ace Hardwares, Krogers, and WalMarts are laid out different from each other, but if you have the app for the chain, you can get a floor plan, and do a search to find what aisle and bin items are in, how many units inventory shows in stock, or if they’re out. It’s saved me a ton of time and hassle.
The magnifier app (or even just the camera zoom on most phones these days) is handy for reading tags and labels if I don’t have my readers. And my unit converter app is often handy. Also if the last of an item doesn’t have a sticker on it you can take a photo of the bin tag with the sku, and most times the check out clerk can just scan the bar code from the photo on your screen. That saves having them go back, or send somebody back to the bin to get it while you wait at the check out.
My shopping lists are on the notes app on my phone. I also have notes saved with lists of my appliances’ and electronics’ model numbers and replacement part numbers for them. A smart phone is just a tool, one that can be very useful or abused.
Good luck with the suggestions. . most parents are not willing to deprive their children of something they would throw a fit from #ell over if taken away.
Kids cannot function with them, or without them. We have dumbed down the kids to the point of sheer ignorance. We did this to ourself. Granted Steve Jobs had a lot to do with it.
“…. but it’s for their safety”….
Some would argue guns are “for their safety” too… Ask any gang member.
Back in the 1970’s it was NEW MATH it failed
It’s 100% on the parents. At the younger ages parents are the ones paying for them and handing them over to their kids. Older kids may have a part-time job or saved an allowance to buy their own. In either case, the parents are responsible for the abuse and misuse taking place. In effect, they have surrendered their parental control to an un-monitored device that undermines their parental authority and influence. And they do it willingly while falsely believing it will, in some way, enrich the child’s life, intellectually and socially. Most likely these parents were brought up parked in front of a TV or a computer monitor so handing their own kid a cell phone is history repeating itself. Personally, I see no way of reversing this trend. I do know that if I had a kid ready for college I’d do all I could to get them to go to medical school to become an orthopedic surgeon. The number of herniated cervical discs is going to explode.
You can also use cell phone jammers in school – like the military does when you enter a secure facility – as soon as you walk in cell phones no longer receive a signal and then you have to lock them up in a cell phone locker which you then get a chit for your locker which at the end of your shift you present chit and you get your cell phone back – go outside about twenty feet or so and you get your cell signal back