Americans are warming to the idea that schools should be for learning rather than doomscrolling, with support for all-day smartphone bans now outweighing opposition for the first time.
A new Pew Research Center survey of 9,750 US adults found that 77 percent support banning smartphones during middle and high school classes, up from 68 percent in 2024. More significantly, support for so-called "bell-to-bell" bans now stands at 48 percent, compared with 43 percent who oppose the idea.
Back in 2024, opponents held the advantage.
The shift coincides with a rush of state legislation. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 42 states have enacted measures addressing cellphone use in schools, many of which require districts to adopt restrictions during the school day.
There's little argument over whether phones belong in class anymore, but the sticking point is whether students should get them back between lessons or keep them tucked away until the final bell.
Age plays a predictable role. Adults under 30 remain the least enthusiastic about bell-to-bell restrictions, with just 28 percent supporting them. Older Americans, meanwhile, appear increasingly comfortable with the notion that teenagers can survive a school day without immediate access to social media, group chats, or whatever crisis is currently unfolding on Snapchat.
The partisan divide is smaller than on most US policy questions. Republicans are more likely to support both classroom and all-day bans, but Democrats also back classroom restrictions by a comfortable margin.
The trend echoes developments elsewhere. In the UK, ministers spent much of this year promising to get tougher on phones in schools, only for it to emerge that most schools already had restrictions in place. The government's reforms mostly gave existing policies more bite, saving ministers the trouble of inventing anything new.
Whether today's students see their phones as indispensable learning tools or portable oxygen tanks is another matter. Pew's latest numbers suggest more American adults are willing to let them find out for six or seven hours a day.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday August 03, @12:38AM (7 children)
Cell phones are a distraction, sure. But compared to the measured effects [mit.edu] of generative large language model use, I suspect they're *far, far* less of an encephalic hazard -- particularly in rapidly-developing teenage brains.
Cell phones are (usually [stakatsu.com]) used as a mode of consuming data, while generative AI is used during/substituting for content creation, which I think is a whole different animal, cognitively.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03, @03:18AM (2 children)
Is that supposed to be English?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 03, @03:20AM (1 child)
Modulo a little editing down, sure :-)
(Score: 3, Funny) by aafcac on Monday August 03, @03:54AM
And here I thought you were just using too much AI.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 03, @04:13PM (2 children)
> *far, far* less of an encephalic hazard
"Those tubes gonna rot your brain you set too close, rurn yer eyes too."
And, in the day, CRTs were actually shooting an electron gun straight at the viewers...
The constant stream of visual entertainment, endless audio-visual stimulation, has to be a significant modifier of a lot of attention circuits - regardless of how banal the content is, or is not.
We fed our children constant streams of BBC, lower key higher quality, low violence content movies, etc. They still sought out the rapid-cut primary color heavy, high pitched voices of children's programming - but at least we don't have constant feeds of violence, sex, gore, sex, death, sex and false images of wealth filling their eye sockets constantly. Still, they seem far less able to appreciate "hanging out with the neighbor kids until the streetlights come on" than we were, and we were already somewhat distracted by 26 channels of cable on the boob tube.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 04, @03:40AM (1 child)
And here I was shocked when a few years ago I actually heard a kid say, "I'm bored. There's nothing on YouTube."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 04, @02:47PM
> There's nothing on YouTube
I get that feeling a lot... there's rarely anything I want to see on YouTube, and especially Netflix.
Of course, that's more of a "me" thing... back when I was 9 reruns of Gilligan's Island and Hogan's Heroes were "worth watching" - even compelling.
Did get around to watching "Enola Holmes" finally - 3 episodes out now, worth the time if you're bored - perhaps trying too hard, not really rewatch worthy - in my opinion.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Freeman on Monday August 03, @09:15PM
Cell phones are a direct link to LLM usage in the classroom.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jb on Monday August 03, @05:21AM (2 children)
would be to ban calling them "smartphones". There's nothing even remotely "smart" about carrying around a device designed from the ground up to spy on you.
Perhaps if the schools taught the students to think for themselves so they'd realise that, instead of lamely repeating and therefore reinforcing the propaganda spewed out by the phone vendors & telcos by using a name that is so completely and obviously wrong, the problem might resolve itself within a generation or so.
Or how about this? Start calling them "dunce phones" instead (and explain why). After all it's a much more accurate term. Just like the dunce caps of olden times, those sporting them would quickly find their peers ridiculing them as the class idiots. Wouldn't take long before no student wanted to be seen with one.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 04, @02:55PM
Oh, I'd say "smart phone" is exactly the right framing for the devices.
The device is, arguably, smart. It's attentive, it listens, it records, it communicates, it synthesizes... I didn't ask for it, but somehow my Android phone has started giving me "morning updates" at 7:15 every day (for the past 3 days, I guess I have to figure out how to switch them off, again.) These updates trawl through the information the phone has about me and lays out a list of things I might like to address / accomplish for the day.
Most people are somewhat afraid of smart people, or smart animals and they bloody well should be equally concerned about "smart phones" which are collecting information about them for other people's benefit.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday August 05, @01:32AM
Eh? They take the "smart" away from the user.. so it is aptly named. It's a matter of perspective and framing.
(Score: 5, Touché) by SomeGuy on Monday August 03, @11:33AM
Given the way things work these days, I'm almost sure someone from the cell phone industry will be along to bribe the policy makers so as to help ensure the future generations stay addicted to "smart" phones.
It's almost surprising they can even get away with trying such bans, as most adults/parents these days view playing with smertphones as a basic human right.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03, @02:05PM
I buy another pair of smart Moto Tracfones every year.
They are no longer "online" unless I use a wifi wireless access point.
I have them loaded with all sorts of calculators, converters, tools, camera, notepads, text editors, hex editors, voice recorders, GPS and HAM stuff, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, musical instrument tuners, I could probably fill several pages of list.
They are usually in airplane mode, so battery life is maximized by cutting all power to the radios.
Basically, almost anything imaginable. Movies, music, No games. All fits on a 128GB TF card.
All on a "throwaway" phone that can only place emergency calls.
I don't open up another window. I just get another phone. They are all clones
I sure would have liked to have had those things when I was in school !
I wonder if that would fly?
We have so many useful things if we only learn how to use them.
That's why I have no games. I simply don't have time to play them. ( Well, most just frustrated me with in-game annoyances ).
Seems all most people want is calls and social media - Facebook kinda stuff.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jman on Monday August 03, @02:15PM
So, as someone who used to say I was late for dinner due to 'forgetting' my Timex, I am firmly in the 'get over it' camp.
Ears and eyes alone are perfectly fine for helping brains learn, and that's the real mission of education.
The phone is too big a detrimental distraction on the attention span one needs to absorb — and retain — knowledge, not to mention being a lazy cheat-enabler.
OT, but relevant: Kids, remember, knowing how to read is your friend!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 03, @05:40PM
The future is very unevenly distributed.
My experience is everyone virtue signals that everyone else's kid is a lazy good for nothing SOB who does nothing all day in class but cyberbully other teens, so the best thing for everyone else's kid is banning all cell phones during the school day.
Then the screaming phone calls start about how come I can't text my little angel about her rescheduled doctor appointment, what do you mean practice was cancelled no one told me and my princess had to sit outside for hours waiting for me, how many kids have to be victims of violence because they can't call 911, the school district made an intentional coverup of a hostile educational environment by preventing simple video documentation of XYZ problem so have a lawsuit for $10M please.
Its always those other kids who should not be Fing around on cell phones but how DARE you get in the way of me texting my little angel, etc.
Its the same deal as texting-while-driving. Every boss/client in the country is like "if you get caught texting while driving we will fire you" whenever they're in a generic shitty virtue signaling mood, but on an individual case basis "how dare you not reply to my text with the excuse you were driving, and you will attend all team phone calls while driving, also"
There's also a side dish of "bad kids" or "kids with problems" using the phone addiction to control them, and taking this away. Teachers can't threaten to take away something the district already took away.
Another issue is how do you lock down something like a school issued tablet or laptop such that it has ZERO communications capabilities? Turns out this is pretty difficult. School district gets talked into Google Workspaces for everyone, kids figure out they can email each other "like instant messaging but more like the 90s" So school issued devices are used more like mobile computer labs, no one is allowed to use school issued computing hardware unless its Oregon Trail Day in the computer lab because the substitute teacher is hung over again, just like the 80s.
Another point of humor is my daughter is unamused when I point out that in the movie "High School Musical" that not only does her cafeteria never break out in to choreographed song and dance routines but the district can't seem to make up its mind from year to year if cellphones in the lunch room are more dangerous than reefer madness or are the most important educational tool ever invented. Sometimes multiple levels of school administration will disagree with each other because the message changes so quickly. "we have always been at war with eastasia..." and the quote is now WRT "devices", either personally owned or school issued. Some years you'll get suspended for pulling out your school issued tablet in the hallway between classes, almost as fast as you'd get expelled for pulling a gun. Other years its a required part of accomplishing your homework so you better do that or your parents will get a note home regarding not doing your homework or documenting your online assignment notebook or whatever.
It is pretty close analogy to weed where sometimes in some states its ignored and in other times and places its a felony. Good luck keeping up with the changes.