Tap. Tap.
Click. Click. Click.
You get that crisp feeling as your fingers hover and glide over each key.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
You feel that rush of dopamine with each snap of your phone controls.
Pinnnnnnng.
You fee that sensation as you hear the chiming of…the school bell?
Pull yourself together, you are at school, yet you cannot resist that compelling attraction to your phone. That is the life of many students as they struggle to ignore the desire to turn their big bright phones back on, but it isn’t that simple.
Today, phones are used for everything, all thanks to their multifunctional properties. From an alarm, to a planner, to a hand-held gaming tool, phones have become an integral part of students’ daily lives, something that they cannot easily detach from, which is a growing concern to parents and instructors who watch the flames of cell phone addiction grow.
Like a controlled fire, teenagers’ reliance on phones needs to be contained, and there has been a nationwide rise in phone bans across schools. With this decision gaining traction, students are left feeling uncertain on how to feel about this change. Many question how effective the ban really is when implemented this harshly.
What is the Cell Phone Ban?
The cell phone ban ranges in severity, but for many schools, it means having students keep their phones in their bags or locking up their phones until they are dismissed.
For schools whose administrators decide to lock up their students’ phones, such as the Maspeth High School, the popular way in which schools are ensuring a phone-free environment is by implementing Yondr pouches, which are magnetically sealed bags that secure students’ cell phones and other electronic devices such as earbuds. Students keep their Yondr pouces with them throughout the duration of the school day, and upon dismissal, take them to unlocking stations to have their phones become accessible again.
Other schools, mainly private or charter, take a more simplistic route, placing baskets at the front of the classroom for phone collection. Schools such as Wareham High School alternatively use a lock box, which similarly stows away students’ phones until the end of class. However, it grant more safekeeping, as lock boxes are typically enclosed through a combination or key lock.Using this strategy, phones are within a student’s viewpoint and easily accessible after class, but out of reach during class instruction.
The purpose behind this enforcement is to improve students’ concentration and mental health by minimizing or eliminating distractions in the classroom setting.
This can be seen as a positive change for teachers who wish to have more engagement in the classroom and to parents who worry about technology’s impact on their child. But many students disagree regarding the effectiveness of the ban.
The Students’ Perspective
Tasnim Farah ‘28, a Bronx Science student who is impacted by the ban, said, “Phones obviously shouldn’t be allowed in class, but sometimes, it’s just a necessity when we need to complete a classwork or an assignment online, especially during times when the school’s internet isn’t working. Given this fact, it’s kind of hard to decide if the phone ban is completely effective.”
Another student, when asked about the ban, said, “I think it’s unnecessary because the students who want to learn will always pay attention, and those who don’t want to learn won’t listen, even without using their phones. I dislike the fact that I can’t use my phone for any reason in class, especially because I use apps to track my to-do list and to upload work.”
The problem is not that students are completely opposed to the cell phone ban. Rather, it is that they feel a weight placed on their shoulders as they are inconvenienced throughout the school day. They need their phones to navigate through the day, and if the phone ban prevents this, it needs to be toned down to fulfill the students’ needs. In order for their needs to be satisfied, the phone ban needs to be one with a lenient tone, allowing students access to their phones within reason.
Another Bronx Science student, Dakota Lombard ’26, sees the benefits of having a ban on cell phones. “I believe that the phone ban implemented by Bronx Science is good in general, as it only restricts phone use in classrooms, where it’s almost always used as a distraction,” Lombard said.
Having distractions in school can take away from learning, which is a huge issue nationwide, given the number of students who pull out their phones in class, secretly playing games or using their phones to cheat. So through the implementation of the cell phone ban, students can be pushed away from these habits.
While there are contrasting opinions, the main concerns involve losing resources in school and limiting distractions. The cell phone ban may have piqued attentiveness in class by removing a distraction, but it, alone, will not work if what is being implemented makes students feel like they are at a loss. This is why the ban should limit itself to baskets and lockboxes and not to Yondr pouches and complete cell phone prohibition.
Friend or Foe?
Even though most students are conscious regarding the negative imprints that are left by their cell phone habits, it can be argued that technology should not be something to be buried away but instead embraced and used as a balancing beam to help guide their education.
A major priority in schools is students’ success, but the only way this can be achieved is if they can engage and grow throughout their time in school. This means that schools need to be able to bend and adapt to students’ needs, which, in this case, would be through the ‘enemy’ — their cell phones.
Justin Nguyen ’28 said, “Cell phones have been and are still currently being innovated to be more helpful and useful towards the consumer. I feel that restricting cell phones in school is limiting that ability. These devices are intended to make life easier, and I believe that banning them would be taking a step backwards.”
Administrators at the American University, located in Washington D.C., argue that student engagement and personalized learning can flourish if we view digital learning tools as a vehicle rather than a weapon. In the modern world, it is important to use modern resources, such as phones, to help our students succeed.
In order for students to stay engaged during class, instructions cannot just be a lecture. There needs to be something more to it, something on a student’s level that will test them on their knowledge and help them to digest the information in class.
Online resources such as Kahoot, Blooket, and Gimkit, which are easily accessible through phones, are made for students to have fun in class in an easy adaptable manner while still learning. Teachers can use the results of their rounds to consider what is and is not essential for the students to go over and therefore personalize learning.
Social Media Use
As strong as any of those arguments are, it is not enough to strike at the core of this ban. It is true that students rely on and can grow with technology on an educational level; however, when we allow students to use their phones in school, we inevitably allow access to social media during school too, which is a deal breaker to many parents.
Social media has played a profound role in almost every teenager’s life in the twenty-first century. Consequently, many research studies have linked social media with unhealthy mental issues including negative self-perception and depression.
Researchers from John Hopkins University find a correlation between excessive social media use and unhealthy behaviors. Since social media tends to lead to students staying up late at night and spending less time outdoors, it can be linked to issues in both mental and physical health, starting with depression and anxiety, and also including sleep disruptions and deprivation.
This is a big issue as the teen years are formative years of a teenager’s life that help to construct their lifestyle and thinking, so a negative self-perception and depression can lead to low left esteem, lack of motivation, and withdrawal from social interactions.
As a matter of fact, around 42% of students in an in person survey that I conducted at Bronx Science feel that they use their phone more at night after the cell phone ban took effect. This indicates that in order for students to be more ‘in-the-moment’ as parents and teachers desire, we cannot just forcefully reduce cell phone use and expect things to improve; more of an effort needs to be made without students feeling like something is being taken away from them.
The Impact After School
To students, being able to hop onto their cell phones is one of the very few times that they can have some time to themselves. It makes it easier for them to talk to their friends and enjoy themselves to create the balance that they seek. That’s exactly why eliminating cell phone use in schools entirely is an issue.
As cell phones are taken out of the picture in school, students become more desperate to reestablish balance in their lifestyles. They feel like they need to spend more time on their cell phones, and that’s what leads them to spending more time on their cell phones after school, even keeping them up at night.
Eladius Figueroa ’28, provides insight into his own life on how the cell phone ban has impacted him. He said, “I believe that I go to bed later due to all the homework and chores that I must complete, leading to less time for myself. This causes me to feel as if I should stay up longer to enjoy my time. Also, I feel more addicted to using my phone ,as my use drastically decreases during the day, causing me to subconsciously feel like I need to make up for the lost time.”
Being in high school means that the workflow naturally piles up, making time for yourself harder to obtain. Cell phones help students to retain that personal time for which they long. Stricter phone regulation on students not only causes cell phone use in school to decrease, but also increases the need to satiate the longing.
Dionisio Rolls ’25 shares similar thoughts, speaking from his own experience. “Students are still going to be addicted to their phones; I can attest to the fact that the minute I’m out of the classroom or safely sitting on the train, I’m on my phone. A phone ban can keep students from using their phone for seven or eight hours, but we can still get addicted during the other eight,” Rolls noted.
Though we can not generalize a wide span of students and say this is the case for every single one of them, we can say that the cell phone ban has impacted students even when they get back home. They feel more drawn to their phones now that they have full access to it again, and there’s nothing stopping them from using it to their satisfaction. Whether it is through posting on social media, messaging friends, or endlessly scrolling through TikTok, students want to use their phones, and the cell phone ban only holds off that need until they are off school premises.
Student’s Right to Communication
Another big reason why parents and teachers are so supportive of the cell phone ban is that they also believe that by making students turn away from their devices, they are more tempted to talk to the people around them. However, we cannot just ignore the fact that students feel as if a vehicle of expression and communication has been stripped from them.
Students typically use their cell phones to contact their friends to meet up, play on their phone, converse with each other, and post online. With the ban, students may seem more approachable without a phone in-hand, but that does not mean that students will and can socialize with each other.
With many students dealing with anxiety or just simply wanting to isolate themselves from social interactions at times, taking their cell phones out of their hands just makes it harder for them to reach out to others or entertain and express themselves.
In the eyes of students, the phone ban can be seen as harsh in the manner it forces socialization; after all, how can it be expected of them to mingle with their friends without their main tool for socialization? By entirely taking phones away from students, we hold students back from being themselves in the manner they are accustomed to. The balance they seek just cannot be restored with an all-school day ban.
Concern for Safety
In our modern world, parental concern for student safety has been high. With the implementation of an all-day cellphone ban internationally, it is only natural for them to be tied up with the worst scenarios.‘What if there’s a fire, or a school shooting? How will I contact my child?’
As mentioned previously, a majority of schools have turned to Yondr pouches, which has only heightened these concerns even more. Being able to contact your children whenever necessary is a vital concept for parents, but with a ban this extreme, it’s hard to find assurance if anything happens.
Samaira Lakhotia ’27, a student who shares this concern, expresses her major disapproval with the phone policy. “I am majorly against this phone policy as I do not feel safe without my phone,” Lakhotia said.
Compared to the cell phone ban of other schools, Bronx Science has a considerably more lenient and moderate approach to the student cell phone issue, yet the concern for safety is still existent because of the multitude of ‘what ifs?’ that race through one’s mind.
To put it simply, the cell phone ban feels risky and it leaves all sides pondering the combination of things that could go wrong, regardless if students and parents are for or against the cell phone ban. The overall ban is too extreme, and needs to be toned down a notch, and to do this the cell phone ban needs to remain exclusively during class.
From a broader perspective, the Pew Research Center reports that 7 in 10 Americans are supportive of a cell phone ban in class, while a third of them lean towards an all-day ban. Parents’ concerns can not be ignored, but neither should the effect of the cell phone ban.
Students do need to be considerately nudged away from their cell phones, but it needs to be carried out in a moderate way that can assure students they are still able to express themselves and still be in contact in the case of an emergency.
Not the First Rodeo
Interesting enough, this isn’t the first appearance of the cell phone ban.
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) finds that the cell phone restriction has been an intermittent enactment, starting from 2009, which prohibited 91% of cell phone use in public schools, before dropping to 66% in 2015, and finally rising again to 76% in 2021.
This fluctuation throughout the years reflects the efforts the states have made to move towards a phone-free classroom, and clearly it’s coming back for another round, which only shows the degree of concern that there is about students and their attachment to their phones.
As much as students want to keep things the way they like, change is inevitable, and seeing as the efforts started around 2009, it is certain to say the efforts made to keep students within restrictions and bounds won’t stop here. This means that as much as students and parents may or may not want the cell phone ban removed, it will only end up returning.
However, we should be able to make a compromise that works for students, their parents, and their teachers.
If we keep the cell phone ban at a point where students can’t even bring their phones to school or take them out, we are avoiding modernization by preventing students from expressing themselves and socializing through their phones. But if we keep the ban at a moderate level where students can use cell phones for educational purposes and during their spare time, not only can students still be ‘in-the-moment’ and engaged in school, but they can learn at their own convenience and get a chance to express themselves as they wish.
“Students are still going to be addicted to their phones; I can attest to the fact that the minute I’m out of the classroom or safely sitting on the train, I’m on my phone. A phone ban can keep students from using their phone for seven or eight hours, but we can still get addicted during the other eight,” said Dionisio Rolls ’25.