There has been a lot of media attention paid lately to cell phone bans in classrooms. In my own child’s school district, there are debates about the right balance of parental authority, student autonomy, and school expectations, all aimed at improving students’ focus.
The research isn’t clear, perhaps because there are so many variables at play when a child is in a classroom. At the Digital Wellness Lab, we believe that all or nothing approaches are unlikely to achieve the desired impacts and are ultimately unsustainable.
When asked by schools, districts, and families, we recommend the following when considering cell phone use in schools:
#1: Work across the school-home divide to identify and address the reasons students are bringing phones to school.
#2: Be intentional about providing a smartphone and consistent about enforcing agreed-upon boundaries around use.
#3: Model healthy, responsible use of smartphones.
#4: Support kids’ autonomy and development of self-regulation skills.
#5: Define a set of shared goals (such as improving students’ classroom focus or reducing cyberbullying incidents) and align new tech policies to these goals.
#6: Integrate digital citizenship and media literacy into teaching and the curriculum.
To learn more, check out our recent blog post.
At the Lab, we are working with colleagues around the world – and kids themselves – to understand how to best support young people in building their self-regulation around, and self-monitoring of, their devices and how they make them feel. Together, we can build a healthier digital ecosystem for our youth, and determining norms is a big piece of that puzzle.
All our best,
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