Cut the cord

Many states have banned cellphones in school. Why not Minnesota?

One prevailing theory behind the nation’s rapidly declining test scores places a large share of the blame squarely on the shrinking attention spans, short-term memories, and intellectual availability caused by cellphones and social media.

The theory holds water. Cellphones strongly affect adults’ attention spans (try to finish this article without looking at yours!) and have even stronger effects on children’s developing minds. Cellphone use strongly affects children’s sleep, depression and anxiety rates, impulse control ability, and their social and emotional health.

The physical classroom now reflects the dismal nature of a Zoom lecture: The teacher opines, cajoles, and enlightens before a sea of blank faces, vacuously looking down at their Chromebooks or cellphones. Stony Brook University’s 2023 study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that students, on average, were on their phones during an entire quarter of the school day. Study feedback from teachers suggested that was a very, very low estimate. The majority of high school teachers (72 percent) told Pew Research Center that distractions from cellphones are a major problem.

For many students, it’s not always a matter of self-discipline. Social media developers copy techniques from casinos and gambling websites to create psychological cravings that activate mechanisms in the brain that are similar to cocaine. Addictive and craving behavior can also worsen with repeated exposure to pornography. A high majority of teenagers have been regularly exposed to internet pornography, and while studies differ, it seems likely that more than half of America’s teenagers regularly use pornography. The social stakes connected to phones are high, too: Students who log off social media or quit texting often risk losing their friends and their opportunities to expand their friendship circle. Research has found that peer pressure significantly predicts childhood social media addiction, and what could be a stronger weapon of peer pressure toward phone addiction than the truthful knowledge that, well, everyone is doing it?

The apps and sites accessed through cellphones are designed to malform children’s brains, and they often succeed. Even if a child (whether an elementary or high schooler) wants to pay attention in school, they may literally be unable to do so.

The role of a parent, or the role of those acting in loco parentis, like school administrators, includes the responsibility to protect children from their harmful impulses.

Yet parents are the ones to give children their first cellphone and are often the loudest detractors when districts limit or blame phone use. The two most cited reasons for the gift are often the need to track a child’s location or the child’s need to fit in socially with their peers.

But some parents, full of conviction, have been fighting to change that culture. Parents around the country have been partnering with their communities and their local school districts to sign the Wait Until 8th pledge — a social pact that empowers parents to opt out of a child’s smartphone gift until 8th grade. Many parents have begun to buy their children (even high school students) smart watches or phones that can send limited calls and texts without addictive access to the Internet.

These parents aren’t necessarily concerned that their children will be digitally illiterate. Most schools already supply laptops, like Chromebooks, and create structured times for students to learn online research skills. Plus, administrators can and do block off-topic or harmful websites, allowing students some breathing room from digital pressures during class.

Around the country, many states have heavily limited or outright banned smartphone usage for students.

Minnesota hasn’t done so. Instead, during the 2024 session, the Minnesota Legislature mandated school districts to adopt a cellphone policy of their choosing by March 15, 2025. Many districts have created cellphone policies that limit the devices, but only a few have entirely outlawed the phones. A proposed law that would prohibit cellphones and smart watches for elementary and middle schoolers and limit cellphones for high schoolers at the state level was not passed.

Full bell-to-bell phone policies can be implemented with the help of new technologies, like Yondr. The Yondr pouch is a magnetically sealed pouch, in which students put their phones during the first hour of the day. When students leave school, they scan their phone at a magnetic unlock “gate” that opens the pouch for them. Schools that have implemented the Yondr pouch have raved about the positive effects on school culture, and Yondr research suggests that academic performance goes up and behavior referrals go down in schools that use the technology.

Yondr and similar programs are popular for solving significant implementation problems associated with less expansive cellphone policies, but they are expensive. The state of New York recently created a robust cellphone policy that included digitally locking pouches — for a cool $13.5 million price tag. Policymakers say that the investment in school culture and distraction-free classrooms is worth it. Arkansas recently approved a similar $7 million package.

The high cost of programs like Yondr might shed some light on why so many Minnesota districts have shied away from bell-to-bell bans on cellphones: They need strong fiscal support from the legislature. But strong leadership and funding from the legislature could make a dramatic difference in students’ lives.

In a way, it’s much easier for districts to implement bell-to-bell cellphone bans than partial ones successfully. If students know well the expectation that phones stay off and in their backpacks at all times, there is no nuance and no room for disproportionate discipline. But research suggests that the mere presence of a cellphone causes distraction, and students may feel an uncontrollable desire to peek. Fully funded bell-to-bell policies change this dynamic, allowing students the comfort of knowing where their phone is without the temptation.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which administers the Programme for International Student Assessment, found that full cellphone bans are the only type of ban that results in a statistically significant reduction in distractions (as measured by a study of math classes).

Partial bans can work, but, as the name suggests, only partially. This creates a spotty implementation and discipline process. It also removes the social pact element of a cellphone ban. If the whole school can access Instagram every 50 minutes (during passing time, for example), each child is socially rewarded by similarly giving their attention to the algorithm.

And, too, the periodic, continuous exposure to phones feeds the addictive impulses in students’ brains. There is no time for true digital rest and no space for deep learning.

Minnesota’s test scores are low, and its ranking in contrast with other states is also dropping. Innovation in the form of a fully funded cellphone ban could help free students from distractions and help them gain essential academic skills. Will we follow in the footsteps of New York, Arkansas, and Missouri, or will we wait until we are the laughingstock of the United States?