Classroom device restrictions now span at least 39 states
As students return to classrooms this month, many are encountering a new school-day reality: classrooms without smartphones. Phone restrictions are now in effect in at least 39 states and Washington DC, and a California law that took effect July 1 requires school districts to develop policies limiting phone use on campus.
Educators and parents have largely driven the push for the restrictions. But student organizers told the Guardian that bans alone are not enough — and that they want a formal role in shaping how the policies work.
“We were the first generation to grow up on technology,” said Olivia Howard, a rising junior at Valley Stream North High School on Long Island. “If legislators are implementing these phone bans, we need to take into account: what are the substitutes? Most kids my age have a relationship with technology, so there has to be other alternatives to replace it.”
Howard said social media had intensified comparison with peers, particularly as college-admissions pressures mounted. Since her school’s phone ban took effect, she said, hallways have grown noisier and more conversational — but the sudden shift has been disorienting for more introverted students, some of whom have turned to Chromebooks during lunch. This fall, she said, the school will open a “detox room” furnished with books, stress toys, and a sound machine where students can “regulate their emotions.” Howard also urged teachers to create more in-person connection opportunities, including group assignments. “If someone’s super shy, that’s going to make them practice talking with other people,” she said.
In California, the new state law took effect July 1. Elise Choi, a junior at the Orange County School of the Arts and a K-12 policy co-chief with GENUp, a youth-led education advocacy group, said locking up devices is a step in the right direction but may not, on its own, be especially effective.
“Kids will always find a way around regulations,” Choi said. She spent most of the year building a coalition for a state bill that would mandate district-wide digital wellness education, which teaches students how social media and AI affect their mental health. “It’s not a matter of how long we’re on our devices but what it’s doing to us when we’re on it,” she said. “In general, the harm really extends beyond the classroom.”
Choi pointed to late-night scrolling, insomnia, and the constant pressure to accumulate “likes” or followers as concerns that the bans do not address. “Our entire social lives are happening online,” she said. “Digital wellness education is about giving students the understanding and skills to actually make better choices, set limits and understand the impact that it’s having on our health.”
Other students are reshaping how the bans are implemented. Liv Kong, a rising senior at Legacy Magnet Academy in Tustin, California, led a student advisory group that ran surveys and piloted three phone policies to find one that worked for students and faculty. The effort began a year ago, after the school adopted a bell-to-bell ban without student input, prompting a backlash. The students ultimately chose a policy banning phones in class but allowing them during breaks.
“Growing up, I’ve seen that imbalance of power between the people who make decisions and the people those decisions affect,” Kong said. “Our mission was to make sure there’s student body representation in those decisions.”
Vihaan Bhardwaj, a 17-year-old rising senior at Mount Everest Academy and a GENUp K-12 policy co-chief, said that when the San Diego school district banned phone use in classrooms last year, many students were apprehensive and confused about the policy’s intent. He said a committee has been meeting with district education officials to communicate screen-time mandates to students “in a way that feels supportive and not punitive.”
“Young people are on the ground to make sure policies are implemented in the right ways,” Bhardwaj said. “As we’ve been able to talk to them, we’ve been able to make more students aware that these policies are there to help them, not to restrict their freedom or rights.”
Bhardwaj joined GENUp and the broader movement to remove phones from schools after an acne flare in middle school sent him spiraling. “Social media made me feel like I was doing everything wrong – eating wrong, using the wrong products – making my experience with such a normal part of teenage life so dramatic, so life or death,” he said.
After New York enacted its statewide bell-to-bell policy last year, the nonprofit #HalfTheStory formed the Teen Tech Council, a youth-led initiative that provides mini-grants for tech-free campus programs. Over the past year, the campaign has supported 50 schools and reached 17,000 students across the state, the organization said.
The grant-funded programs have ranged from rolling “crafts carts” placed around a rural campus after the school cut its art program, to a phone-free scavenger hunt organized with disposable cameras. Cayden Boahene, a recent graduate from Democracy Prep Endurance High School in the Bronx, used a portion of a $4,500 grant to host a Wellness Day during finals week, where nearly 100 students shot hoops, played board games, and formed new friendships without phones.
“I saw most of the students didn’t concentrate in class because of phones,” Boahene said. “Some don’t connect with others and just connect through phones. I wanted to create an event to build real-world connections.”
The student organizers stressed that they support the underlying policy direction. Their objections, they said, are about implementation: haphazard enforcement, lack of student input, and the absence of structured education about how social media and AI affect mental health.