Thank you, Dr. Haidt, for further confirming my conviction as both a parent and teacher. I don't regret much, but one thing I do regret is giving our now-adult daughter a phone too young. It's fully fueled our conviction to not give her younger brothers a smartphone at all. Our 15-year-old will get a Wisephone when he's 16 and driving, and our 13-year-old son will maybe get a dumb phone... eventually. We're in no hurry.
Interestingly enough, right now our boys don't want a phone. They see their peers' inability to focus and constant fight with anxiety, we talk about the reasons why all the time at home, and for now, they're asking us to not give them one. Some of their peers find their lack of desire for a phone "cool," as though they themselves are unable to do without one. It's so interesting.
Excellent Article. i shared it with a good friend who runs a company with five schools. He already banned phones, but made ALL parents sign an agreement. If a parent would not sign it, he/she had to start finding a new school. Some kids will try to sneak a phone in. If found out, the phone is taken away till the end of the term. The schools have seen an immediate and dramatic improvement in results.
This should be a no-brainer. I like the fact that “nuclear options,” like locking every student’s phone in a box at the front of the school when they come in the building, are on the table. Indicating that those of us who responded to the claims that, “there’s nothing we can do about teens using their phones in school,” by retorting, “you’re just not trying hard enough,” are correct.
When I was in high school in 2012, it wasn’t even that hard for teachers who wanted to enforce the no-phones policy (or the ban on hats) to do so. Some of them took pride in it. Heck, it wasn’t hard for professors I knew to ban laptops in class just 6-8 years ago even without any credible sanction.
“ They said too many parents would be upset if they could not reach their children during the school day.”
WTF? How do we imagine parents 30 years ago coped? 50? 65? 20 years ago, if my parents or my friends’ parents wanted to reach me or my friends at school, they called the school!
“ If you have any doubt that phones in school stunt social connections, just talk to students about what happens at lunch time. My undergraduate students at NYU tell me that it is often difficult to have real conversations, because most of their fellow students keep their phones on the table and frequently break away to check or respond to notifications.”
This didn’t happen in high school 10 years ago. I did notice it in college by 2017 mostly in students younger than myself, and was pretty shocked.
My apologies to all the excellent teachers likely to be the ones who would read After Babel but - widening the pool more generally - haven't things got so bad now with our 'education' systems in the West that we maybe need to go, not just phone-free but school-free too? Present company aside, in 2023 how many teachers/humanities academics, for example, would you describe as open-minded and historically and culturally-literate? https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers. How many have emerged from their own tertiary 'education' free of some or other kind of crass leftist ideological agenda? In Britain anyway, never mind social media, many of the schools themselves have started pumping small children with the latest fad gender ideology. That's the way bureaucracies work; no 'woke' stupidity is too stupid for them to get in on the act with.
Also grateful for this work and these links, Jon. To corroborate:
I talked to a substitute teacher last week in our local Northern Colorado School District (Poudre School District) -- and she said: A few years ago, it was possible to ask kids to put away their phones, or to collect phones at the beginning of class. Now? Not so much. Too many students -- in middle and high school -- experience a crippling, debilitating anxiety from not having their phones -- in part from a state fear of active shooters, of needing to be able to contact people they care about. It's become a lifeline for them.
I appreciate, in this context, your solution: dumb phones. Further, it's the time that we get a nationally mandated restriction on harmful social media apps before 16, as Twenge recommends.... to give parents more support in making this decision with their kids. This is crucially important for the development of adults who can focus their attention and listen to eachother in a way that promotes social belonging. We'll need this more than ever in the coming decades.
Thank you for this excellent post Jon! Your work in not just drawing attention to the fact that phones are destroying our children's attention, relationships, and mental health, but also providing specific data, delivers the potency that parents and teachers need to enact changes. I especially appreciate how you address the opposing arguments and your proposition to simply provide a dumb phone.
I recently organized a 30-day digital detox within the substack community https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/from-feeding-moloch-to-digital-minimalism, and am now reading about all the freedoms that the participants regained during this time. Most of them deleted all social media apps, many of them kept their phone away from their body or even in a separate room, and none of them plan on going back to their anxiety-provoking scrolling habits. They have rediscovered what it means to have cognitive liberty and even state that they have 'limit-less potential', and simply feel normal again.
They have reawakened to the freedom of limits. Why would we take this freedom away from our children if we can choose a different path? Thanks again for your essential and wonderful work!
Banning cell phones in schools (K to 12) must be addressed with legislation at the state level. We have already seen what happens when left to district administrators, superintendents. and BOE members. Those who make and approve policy are too far removed from the problem - nor do they want to face the inevitable battle from parents. This is despite the fact that they know such a ban would benefit teachers and students alike. Eliminating cell phones via state education law would provide the cover that policy makers need to do the right thing. It will also be much easier to enforce and should help with compliance knowing that every public school in the state is operating under the same ban. The Level 5 solution should become the norm at the MS and HS levels, with a complete ban at the elementary level. Let's all call our state representatives and try to make this happen. This article with it's links provides all the evidence one needs to get the ball rolling.
We should absolutely make classrooms phone free. In our school district, teachers aren't allowed to restrict cell phone use in the classroom or have kids check their phones at the door, which is a stark contrast from when I was in high school when cell phones were just becoming commonplace. Back then, cell phones were not allowed out of our backpacks or lockers. Since there are no longer pay-phones in schools, students will still need to bring phones to school to contact parents after school or after activities, but they should not be allowed in classrooms. Glad research is finally backing up the need -- but, research shouldn't be necessary for teachers to implement rules in the classroom that they know will help students learn.
I do volunteer work with the mentally disabled and the smart phones aren't helping them either. They get lost on them for hours and you can just see their brains turning to mush.
Thank you for addressing such an important matter. I have observed that my relatives' school-age children, who I consider to be slightly more privileged because they do not bring their phones to school, have lost interest in reading books. They have developed a strong belief that watching educational videos is sufficient for their learning. Additionally, their attention spans seem to be significantly shorter compared to children from my generation.
This is an excellent article; however, although you address mass gun shootings in schools your argument that not having a phone would allow children to listen/pay attention to adults during an emergency is unrealistic. Take Uvalde, for example, there were no adults to supervise the situation. Shootings are happening on a Daily Basis and more psychological harm would be caused to these children if their phone was locked in a bag on the wall and they couldn't text their parents.
Why do children need their own phone, smart or otherwise? I don't even have my own phone. Just a landline. When it comes to actually using a phone for making calls, the landline is still a superior technology. Better sound and easier to use. Cheaper too.
In case you need help comparing epidemics to find that Facebook, Pharma defendants, and Quack Shrinks are in the "Competition for 'Nazi' of the Century"... here is a video ending with a graphic of US highschool and nonHighschool suicide attempts of 2013 extrapolated backwards and forwards from the liberation of Auschwitz through 2021:
Thanks, Dr. Haidt, for sharing. I especially appreciate your commentary on the links between mental health, social media, and phones in a school community. After being in a middle school classroom where there were no phones allowed (phones were turned in at the beginning of the school day in a lockbox and given out to students at the end of the day), the emotional effects of social media impact students' emotional processing.
TikTok's algorithm (in particular) promotes content that elicits a strong emmotion in a matter of seconds. Whatever emotion it is, it comes up, and then you scroll immediately to the next video, where the instant emotional reaction could be on the opposite end of the spectrum. This trains students' brains to not pay attention to their emotional processing, rather repress it until it turns into anxiety / stress / depression. It shows up in the classroom in volatile moods, the inability to describe or stay with an uncomfortable emotion, which often you need to do in order to process it fully.
While social-emotional learning has taken off in schools since COVID, there's 'preventative' work that's deeper than "name how you are feeling today".
Our private school started using phone lockers a few years ago and it has significantly improved the environment on campus (less cheating, more positive student interactions). Students still use Chromebooks in the classroom, which allows teachers to take advantage of the helpful instructional technology available. It was a difficult adjustment for our students at first, but well worth it. As a parent and a principal, I recommend delaying smart phones as long as possible, but the reality is, most students have them, and rely on them so it is difficult for individual parents to resist. I encourage parents to stay stong and fins alternatives to smart phones that will meet your family's basic needs.
The Case for Phone-Free Schools (updated links)
Thank you, Dr. Haidt, for further confirming my conviction as both a parent and teacher. I don't regret much, but one thing I do regret is giving our now-adult daughter a phone too young. It's fully fueled our conviction to not give her younger brothers a smartphone at all. Our 15-year-old will get a Wisephone when he's 16 and driving, and our 13-year-old son will maybe get a dumb phone... eventually. We're in no hurry.
Interestingly enough, right now our boys don't want a phone. They see their peers' inability to focus and constant fight with anxiety, we talk about the reasons why all the time at home, and for now, they're asking us to not give them one. Some of their peers find their lack of desire for a phone "cool," as though they themselves are unable to do without one. It's so interesting.
Excellent Article. i shared it with a good friend who runs a company with five schools. He already banned phones, but made ALL parents sign an agreement. If a parent would not sign it, he/she had to start finding a new school. Some kids will try to sneak a phone in. If found out, the phone is taken away till the end of the term. The schools have seen an immediate and dramatic improvement in results.
This should be a no-brainer. I like the fact that “nuclear options,” like locking every student’s phone in a box at the front of the school when they come in the building, are on the table. Indicating that those of us who responded to the claims that, “there’s nothing we can do about teens using their phones in school,” by retorting, “you’re just not trying hard enough,” are correct.
When I was in high school in 2012, it wasn’t even that hard for teachers who wanted to enforce the no-phones policy (or the ban on hats) to do so. Some of them took pride in it. Heck, it wasn’t hard for professors I knew to ban laptops in class just 6-8 years ago even without any credible sanction.
“ They said too many parents would be upset if they could not reach their children during the school day.”
WTF? How do we imagine parents 30 years ago coped? 50? 65? 20 years ago, if my parents or my friends’ parents wanted to reach me or my friends at school, they called the school!
“ If you have any doubt that phones in school stunt social connections, just talk to students about what happens at lunch time. My undergraduate students at NYU tell me that it is often difficult to have real conversations, because most of their fellow students keep their phones on the table and frequently break away to check or respond to notifications.”
This didn’t happen in high school 10 years ago. I did notice it in college by 2017 mostly in students younger than myself, and was pretty shocked.
My apologies to all the excellent teachers likely to be the ones who would read After Babel but - widening the pool more generally - haven't things got so bad now with our 'education' systems in the West that we maybe need to go, not just phone-free but school-free too? Present company aside, in 2023 how many teachers/humanities academics, for example, would you describe as open-minded and historically and culturally-literate? https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers. How many have emerged from their own tertiary 'education' free of some or other kind of crass leftist ideological agenda? In Britain anyway, never mind social media, many of the schools themselves have started pumping small children with the latest fad gender ideology. That's the way bureaucracies work; no 'woke' stupidity is too stupid for them to get in on the act with.
Also grateful for this work and these links, Jon. To corroborate:
I talked to a substitute teacher last week in our local Northern Colorado School District (Poudre School District) -- and she said: A few years ago, it was possible to ask kids to put away their phones, or to collect phones at the beginning of class. Now? Not so much. Too many students -- in middle and high school -- experience a crippling, debilitating anxiety from not having their phones -- in part from a state fear of active shooters, of needing to be able to contact people they care about. It's become a lifeline for them.
I appreciate, in this context, your solution: dumb phones. Further, it's the time that we get a nationally mandated restriction on harmful social media apps before 16, as Twenge recommends.... to give parents more support in making this decision with their kids. This is crucially important for the development of adults who can focus their attention and listen to eachother in a way that promotes social belonging. We'll need this more than ever in the coming decades.
Thanks again for this work.
Thank you for this excellent post Jon! Your work in not just drawing attention to the fact that phones are destroying our children's attention, relationships, and mental health, but also providing specific data, delivers the potency that parents and teachers need to enact changes. I especially appreciate how you address the opposing arguments and your proposition to simply provide a dumb phone.
I recently organized a 30-day digital detox within the substack community https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/from-feeding-moloch-to-digital-minimalism, and am now reading about all the freedoms that the participants regained during this time. Most of them deleted all social media apps, many of them kept their phone away from their body or even in a separate room, and none of them plan on going back to their anxiety-provoking scrolling habits. They have rediscovered what it means to have cognitive liberty and even state that they have 'limit-less potential', and simply feel normal again.
They have reawakened to the freedom of limits. Why would we take this freedom away from our children if we can choose a different path? Thanks again for your essential and wonderful work!
Banning cell phones in schools (K to 12) must be addressed with legislation at the state level. We have already seen what happens when left to district administrators, superintendents. and BOE members. Those who make and approve policy are too far removed from the problem - nor do they want to face the inevitable battle from parents. This is despite the fact that they know such a ban would benefit teachers and students alike. Eliminating cell phones via state education law would provide the cover that policy makers need to do the right thing. It will also be much easier to enforce and should help with compliance knowing that every public school in the state is operating under the same ban. The Level 5 solution should become the norm at the MS and HS levels, with a complete ban at the elementary level. Let's all call our state representatives and try to make this happen. This article with it's links provides all the evidence one needs to get the ball rolling.
We should absolutely make classrooms phone free. In our school district, teachers aren't allowed to restrict cell phone use in the classroom or have kids check their phones at the door, which is a stark contrast from when I was in high school when cell phones were just becoming commonplace. Back then, cell phones were not allowed out of our backpacks or lockers. Since there are no longer pay-phones in schools, students will still need to bring phones to school to contact parents after school or after activities, but they should not be allowed in classrooms. Glad research is finally backing up the need -- but, research shouldn't be necessary for teachers to implement rules in the classroom that they know will help students learn.
I do volunteer work with the mentally disabled and the smart phones aren't helping them either. They get lost on them for hours and you can just see their brains turning to mush.
Thank you for addressing such an important matter. I have observed that my relatives' school-age children, who I consider to be slightly more privileged because they do not bring their phones to school, have lost interest in reading books. They have developed a strong belief that watching educational videos is sufficient for their learning. Additionally, their attention spans seem to be significantly shorter compared to children from my generation.
This is an excellent article; however, although you address mass gun shootings in schools your argument that not having a phone would allow children to listen/pay attention to adults during an emergency is unrealistic. Take Uvalde, for example, there were no adults to supervise the situation. Shootings are happening on a Daily Basis and more psychological harm would be caused to these children if their phone was locked in a bag on the wall and they couldn't text their parents.
Why do children need their own phone, smart or otherwise? I don't even have my own phone. Just a landline. When it comes to actually using a phone for making calls, the landline is still a superior technology. Better sound and easier to use. Cheaper too.
How is this limited only to schools and not applicable to the workplace and our social spaces?
Dear Dr Haidt and fans,
I hope you are well
Sorry for the in formality
Thank you for your efforts
In case you need help comparing epidemics to find that Facebook, Pharma defendants, and Quack Shrinks are in the "Competition for 'Nazi' of the Century"... here is a video ending with a graphic of US highschool and nonHighschool suicide attempts of 2013 extrapolated backwards and forwards from the liberation of Auschwitz through 2021:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqn6UYx4SCY
Please take the booster prescribed by the White House and the science of anxiety:
"Do one thing every day that scares you."-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Thanks, Dr. Haidt, for sharing. I especially appreciate your commentary on the links between mental health, social media, and phones in a school community. After being in a middle school classroom where there were no phones allowed (phones were turned in at the beginning of the school day in a lockbox and given out to students at the end of the day), the emotional effects of social media impact students' emotional processing.
TikTok's algorithm (in particular) promotes content that elicits a strong emmotion in a matter of seconds. Whatever emotion it is, it comes up, and then you scroll immediately to the next video, where the instant emotional reaction could be on the opposite end of the spectrum. This trains students' brains to not pay attention to their emotional processing, rather repress it until it turns into anxiety / stress / depression. It shows up in the classroom in volatile moods, the inability to describe or stay with an uncomfortable emotion, which often you need to do in order to process it fully.
While social-emotional learning has taken off in schools since COVID, there's 'preventative' work that's deeper than "name how you are feeling today".
Our private school started using phone lockers a few years ago and it has significantly improved the environment on campus (less cheating, more positive student interactions). Students still use Chromebooks in the classroom, which allows teachers to take advantage of the helpful instructional technology available. It was a difficult adjustment for our students at first, but well worth it. As a parent and a principal, I recommend delaying smart phones as long as possible, but the reality is, most students have them, and rely on them so it is difficult for individual parents to resist. I encourage parents to stay stong and fins alternatives to smart phones that will meet your family's basic needs.