What To Do About Screens in Schools? Phones, Tablets, and Focus in the Classroom

00:00:12 – Introduction by Executive Director of Children and Screens Kris Perry

00:01:48 – Moderator and panelists introduce themselves.

00:12:22 – Moderator Antero Garcia introduces the topic and provides key definitions.

00:17:09 – The panel addresses questions from the moderator and the audience.

00:17:25 – Q&A: What do you see as the key issues and nuances when it comes to the topic of phone bans? What do parents need to know, and what makes phones so distracting?

00:25:45 – Q&A: How do phone policies fit into a broader conversation about technology use in classrooms? How can we think about the use of different digital technologies?

00:33:04 – Q&A: What are the pros and cons of devices and technology in early childhood education?

00:40:51 – Q&A: How do one-to-one device policies factor into the conversation?

00:50:54 – Q&A: How should we think about the question of using technology in schools to prepare students for the real world? Are there ways to have a positive relationship with technology?

00:58:18 – Q&A: What do classroom technologies look like at younger versus older ages? What would a perfect device look like for preschoolers?

01:06:14 – Q&A: When it comes to screen use by teachers, how can we determine the added value of screens or technology use in class? When do you decide to use or not to use a device?

01:09:01 – Q&A: Given the awareness of the effects of screen time on mental health, why aren’t schools talking about removing or limiting one-to-one devices?

01:13:27 – Q&A: How can schools address parent concerns about safety when discussing phone bans?

01:18:42 – Q&A: Are there ways that schools can involve students and parents in decision-making and implementation?

01:24:03 – Moderator Antero Garcia provides conclusion remarks.

01:25:06 – Wrap-up with Children and Screens’ Executive Director Kris Perry.

[Kris Perry]: Hello and welcome to What to Do About Screens in Schools? Phones, Tablets, and Focus in the Classroom, our first #AskTheExperts webinar of the fall 2025 season. I am Kris Perry, Executive Director of Children and Screens. Hot button issues such as phone bans and class time screen use are sparking debate in schools and homes around the country. Educators, parents, and policymakers are grappling with how device use during school time impacts student focus, learning, and development. But what do we know about the effectiveness of phone bans? And what do experts recommend for device use in the classroom? In this session, we’ll explore the complexities of screen use in schools and share practical tips to help parents support healthy, balanced device use for learning and well-being. I would like to introduce you to today’s moderator Antero Garcia. Dr. Garcia is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. His research explores the possibilities of speculative imagination and healing and educational research. Prior to completing his PhD, Dr. Garcia was an English teacher at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles. He has authored or edited more than two dozen books about the possibilities of literacy, play, and civics in transforming schooling in America. He currently co-edits La Quinta, an online publication centering the voices and perspectives of individuals labeled undocumented in the United States. Welcome, Antero.

 [Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thanks, Kris. Yeah, I’m excited to be a part of this panel with everybody. I’m going to say a few words about myself and then introduce the rest of the panel. And so, as Kris mentioned, I spend a lot of my time thinking about English teachers and English classrooms and public schools. And one of those two dozen books that Kris mentioned that I wrote was my dissertation many years ago. And that focused on using cell phones in my own ninth grade English classroom. My own feelings around this are largely that bans — while oftentimes respond to the needs and desires of parents and teachers —fail to meet the actual educational outcomes that we need for young people, and I think are a shortcut towards foregoing some of the larger issues that we think about in terms of education that we’re missing. We’re giving up the opportunity in schools to think about responsible cell phone use through things like bans, and I think there’s other ways we might think about this. I realize there are other people on this panel that will think differently, and I’m excited to have that conversation with everybody. We’ve used phones in my classrooms around– as portals for civic engagement. And largely a lot of the work that I think about today really is thinking about the limitations of educational technology. So to be clear, I’m not a huge endorser of most kinds of technology. I tend to be pretty skeptical. I tend to be something of a luddite  myself, and – so when I say that I’m not necessarily for draconian measures of cell phone bans, It is not because I’m here to endorse any particular technology in general. That being said, I think we have an amazing group of panelists today, and so I’d love to have Matt  introduce themselves before we move on to the next person.

[Matthew Brady]: There we go. Hi, I’m Matt Brady. I’m a high school teacher. I’ve been teaching for 16 years, so I saw phones start up in the classroom and then just suddenly – well not suddenly, but gradually – become a tidal wave. I’ve taught through COVID, which I think exacerbated a lot of problems that we probably will end up talking about today. And just so Antero knows, I’m probably one of the people who disagrees with him on a few points here. I’ve moved past phone-ban evangelical. I think I’m more towards, not quite militant phone ban, but I see them as distracting. I see them as addictive to our students, and I’m trying to figure out ways to get around that. I think bans can be successful. But again, like Antero, I’m really anxious to hear what a lot of the other panelists have to say about that. Oh, and I’m a high school teacher, as I said, in North Carolina, and I just got done teaching, so that’s why I look like this.

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Sachin, would you like to introduce yourself? 

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]: Sure. So. Hi, everybody. My name is Sachin Maharaj. I’m an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Program Evaluation at the University of Ottawa. I’m currently conducting a couple different studies looking at the implementation of, quote unquote, “phone bans” or policies designed to regulate and restrict student phone use in schools. And so I’m looking at that from a couple different angles. One, from the perspective of teachers and their experience implementing these policies, but then also, drilling down into some student level data to see whether these restrictions  show up on any indicators around student social and emotional well-being, mental health, and academic outcomes. I should say, prior to getting  involved in this work or even entering academia, I was a high school teacher, in Toronto, in the Toronto District School Board for 14 years. And when I began my teaching career, the Toronto board had just implemented a phone ban in schools. But this was really before smartphones were prevalent. This is back basically when kids were just texting on their phones, and so I was tasked with implementing those restrictions. It was very difficult even before smartphones came around, and then a few years later, the district kind of reversed its policy and decided to embrace these technologies. And the idea was, well, if students are bringing these devices into schools, we should leverage that in order to improve learning. And that was in conjunction with the introduction of a bunch of different technologies – tablets, laptops, Chromebooks, etc. And then, more recently we’ve kind of gone full circle. So in Canada, the Toronto board was one of the first ones to, then, kind of re-ban cell phones in their school district. And now that’s sparked similar policies across the entire country, similar to many initiatives, across the US. Now, my own view on this is for the past decade or more even, I’ve really–I’ve been advocating for just a more critical orientation towards all digital technology use in schools. Because in my own experience as a teacher and then looking at this more academically, the rationale and evidence base for a lot of digital technology use in schools, I feel is inconsistent, I would say, at best. And so I think if we’re going to be spending a lot of time and resources on these technologies, we want to make sure that this is actually helping students.

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thank you. Abe, would you like to introduce yourself?

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: Hey, everybody. My name is Abe Flanagan, and I’m an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at Georgia Southern University down here in Statesboro, Georgia. My research agenda kind of rests at the three-way intersection of mobile technology, academic motivation, and self-regulation of  learning. So particularly, I spend a lot of time looking at digital distraction – which refers to how student misuse of devices while they’re attending to academic tasks inside or outside of the classroom – and how that affects their task motivation, their self-regulation of learning tendencies, and ultimately their academic performance. Most of my research is focused on digital distraction among college students. But you can make – college students used to be K-12 students. And so a lot of these investigations and conversations with research participants and also just my own students in my classes, it kind of revealed that their digital distraction and habits, if you will, sort of formed when they were in K-12 education. You know, I’m down here in the state of Georgia and like many states  around the nation, we recently passed a state bill, House Bill 340, which bans the use of personal electronic devices from the first bell until the last bell in K-8 classrooms. And so my colleagues and I are going to explore teacher perceptions of this bill and also just kind of more broadly, teacher perceptions of a student digital distraction and the effects that it has on teaching and learning. And my personal position here is that mobile electronics offer really incredible, immense potential for engaging students and for enhancing teaching and learning in the classroom. But that being said, the potential for distraction is obviously considerable. And so we’ve – you know smartphones became widely available around 2012 and kind of more basic cell phones became more widely available you know, even earlier than that. And so we know we’ve had, you know, more than a decade to know that distraction occurs. And so I don’t believe that devices should be wholly banned from classrooms, but I do believe that they should be heavily regulated. So, for example, students place their smartphones in pouches and then retrieve them when the teacher wants them to be able to do that. And something that I noticed is obviously on this panel, we don’t have any current or former, but recently I guess former students. So I’ve got written testimonials from my undergraduates who support that more of a restricted approach – where we can hopefully unlock the potential that the devices have – without succumbing to the distraction potential.

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thanks Abe. Melanie, would you like to introduce yourself?

[Dr. Melanie Johnson]: Sure. Hello, everybody. I’m Melanie Johnson, 

President of a nonprofit organization called Collaborative for Children here in Houston, Texas. The energy capital of the world – the medical science, you name it, space exploration. And, in the spirit of early education, which is what my work is centered around, we are developing an ecosystem for early childhood education, children ages up to 5 years of age, ensuring that they are prepared for kindergarten. But we’re doing so, recognizing and realizing the neurobiological effects that are necessary for the brain’s development–especially in those early years. But also we realize that absolutism is not necessarily our position and certainly isn’t mine. We also think that some of the screen time and so forth are arbitrarily selected, because we realize that if you create an absolute ban on 1-to-1 devices or any kind of screen time in an early education space, then that has a lot of preventions as well. And so we use science and technology in the classroom – coding and what have you – to teach early education in a play-based manner as well as to stimulate executive function. So, that’s our position. And, I look forward to talking more about this. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Awesome. Thank you. I’m super excited to get into this with all four of you, in a moment. Before that, I wanted to just take a couple of minutes and kind of make sure that we’re all loosely on the same page of some of the definitions that we’ll be discussing for today. So, you know, there’s – there’s many different iterations of what a ban, a phone ban might be, as well as what even is a cell phone. So maybe we should just start with some, like, very basic things. Right. So Abe, you mentioned a pouch, and I feel like there’s different – there’s different definitions of pouch as is relevant to this conversation. So when we talk about cell phones or a phone ban, you know, it probably looks something like this. It’s probably someone’s cellular device. It’s probably worth pointing out that even though we refer to these as cell phones, most people don’t use the phone function all that much. And that’s actually not the part that we’re usually all that distracted by. So to recognize that, it is a mini version of what we talk about as tablets – that is the thing that we tend to talk about in terms of banning. Right? And then from there, when we talk about other kinds of devices, there are tablets, or equivalents of iPads, right, that oftentimes are used in schools, provided by the schools, oftentimes, and other kinds of 1-to-1 devices might be things like Chromebooks, netbooks, laptops. Right. So there’s an array of kinds of devices, and I think the smaller they get, the more illicit they might feel when it comes to these kinds of policies. So just kind of recognizing that kind of difference. And then when it comes to bans, there’s lots of different kinds of bans as well. Right. So, some of the language that is used is a bell-to-bell kind of ban. Right, which feels very – some of this feels self-explanatory, but I just want to make sure that we’re all really understanding. So a bell-to-bell ban, right, is, not having your phone either available or used during school hours. There are other kinds of bans where students are able to use them during social periods, such as lunch and during passing periods.

And ways that these get enforced are through, you know, not having phones allowed at school – period – to having phones locked in something like a Yondr pouch. Right. Some proprietary device that is magnetically sealed during the day and students can unlock it at the end of the day. And the companies that make those probably make a bunch of money off of being able to make those proprietary bags or pouches. As well as, I think – Abe you’re  referring to the kind of pouch that is in the front of a classroom – you might, like, kind of check in your device, as a different kind of way, where devices might be available or separated from the student at any given time. So just to recognize, like, those are some different kinds of ways that we can think about the devices here. But you know, the title of today’s panel is phones, tablets, focus. Right. And so just one recognizing again, when we talk about phones, we’re talking primarily about handheld smart devices that can oftentimes fit in somebody’s pocket. And the more personal and student-enabled of that device, I think the more concerned we are about adult control over those devices. Right. 1-to-1 devices oftentimes have different kinds of software on them that allows teachers and districts and schools to assert some kind of control or surveillance on students in ways that their own personally owned cell phone devices doesn’t allow them to do. So there’s questions of power, control, surveillance tied to these issues of bans I also want to recognize. Tablets, on the other hand, oftentimes convey something bigger, maybe closer to – something closer to what students – but this is just like my notebook – something that students might hold to write on, or produce work on. And so, again, a tablet might feel more school-like, and less cell phone-like if we think of these divides. And then in terms of –  I think Melanie – the work that you’re bringing into this conversation, when we think of focus, I just want to recognize that this is – there’s a big age difference for us to recognize, right? So if we think of pre-kindergarten and the needs around focus for pre-kindergarten, we’re talking about a very different kind of demand, than on students in middle school and high school and beyond. Right. So when we think of that focus, those age differences are really important. And we tend to be less concerned around a cell phone ban for kindergartners because most kindergartners probably don’t have cell phones. Right. So there are some age distinctions that we’re probably talking about in this conversation. When in our preparation for today – I mentioned that I used to be the judgy person if I was at a restaurant and I saw kids kind of propped up being, you know, babysat by an iPad while people were at a restaurant. And then my wife and I had twins, and all of that – all of that judgyness just went out the window, as I think through my own navigation of how do I take my kids into public without, you know, starting maybe a literal or metaphorical fire. So I just want to recognize, right. There’s ways we can think through – what does society expect of young people, and what are the ways that these bans either bring us into those expectations or push us away from them – as some consideration? All right. All of that kind of table-setting in place, I’m going to move us into the first set of questions here. And Sachin, maybe I’ll ask you to respond to this question after I read out to everybody as a starting place, if that’s okay. I mean, that is –  what do you see as the key issues and nuances when it comes to the topic of phone bans? Related to that are things of, you know – what is it that parents might need to know about this? And what are the ways that districts are taking some of this information into account when it comes to phone bans? And maybe even underneath that? Again – take this in the directions that are useful for you all – I’ll prod as we move along – why are phones distracting? What is it about phones in particular that makes them distracting? But, what are the issues at hand here, Sachin? 

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]:  So maybe I’ll actually start with the last  question you asked about phones being distracting. I think the key issue is that in some sense, they’re designed to be distracting. They’re designed to – the phones and the things on them are designed to grab our attention, and this isn’t just a problem for kids. I think it’s a problem for everybody. Right? I think it’s a problem for all of us. It’s a problem for me, even though I know and study these issues. Right. So, like, right now my phone is off to the side somewhere, and there’s like a part of my brain right now as we’re here wondering like what is going on in my phone? Is there some message I’m missing? If there’s a lull in the event right now, I feel a compulsion to, like, go and quickly check my phone. I don’t do that because I’m on camera, and it would look very embarrassing, but I think this is something all of us grapple with. I point to some of the work of Gloria Mark at UC Irvine. So I provided that link to her book on attention called Attention Span. I think that’s really interesting for people to look at, because one of the things she has done – is over the past 20 years – has looked at how people, adults, use their attention when working with different digital technologies, and the results are pretty striking. The average person’s attention span when working on computers, tablets, that sort of thing has decreased something like close to 70% over the past 20 years. So she looks at, like, how long do people focus on one task or screen. And all of that seems to be decreasing. And one of the interesting links she makes is how our broader informational environment has changed in response. So, for example, what do TV commercials look like? What do the way programs are edited, like how often do the camera angle like switch, right, between different views. And you can see some of that – probably in a more extreme form –  if you look at, like, the way TikTok videos are filmed, there’s, like, a constant sort of switching and that sort of thing. That’s all to say that I think these devices are distracting for everybody. So when we talk about it, in the context of kids it’s also, I think, useful to do some self-reflection. Like when I have these conversations with my own children, they sometimes think, like, my wife and I are hypocritical because they see us on our phones, kind of scrolling and doing that sort of stuff. Now, in terms of the phone bans themselves, I think one of the nuances is – Antero, as you hinted at – this could mean very different things in different contexts. So whether that’s something that’s like bell-to-bell or something that is during class time or is at the discretion of the teacher, these all take different forms. And really the key thing as to whether any of these have any impact on students social-emotional well-being or academic outcomes is how they are actually implemented. There are many, many examples where phone bans or other policies are announced but exist really in theory and not in practice, because they aren’t implemented consistently. And, so I think before a kind of top down ban is announced, we really need to think about – what the different stakeholders involved – what their views are, and kind of what the level of support is for these restrictions. So to give you an example, here in Ontario where I am, in 2019, the province announced a phone ban in schools all across the entire province. But basically what happened is nobody took it seriously. The teachers didn’t take it seriously. The parents weren’t on board because they wanted to be able to contact their kids during the day and students and administrators. So, and, in the last year –in 2024 – the province kind of re-banned phones five years later. And even the leader of the province – the premier at the time – was confused as to why this was even necessary. So that’s all to say that in order for any of these to be effective, you really need support among all of those different groups I just mentioned – teachers, students, but then probably most importantly, the parents. Because they’re the ones that are purchasing these devices for their kids. And oftentimes in terms of implementing restrictions, it’s parents that provide the most pushback because, again, they enjoy some of the convenience of being able to communicate with their kids. And, you know, there’s questions of safety. They want to make sure their kids are okay in different contexts. So all of that needs to be taken into consideration before I think any kind of phone restriction or phone ban is put in place. 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: Going along with the notion of: why are the devices so appealing to kids or really to anybody? I want to put a name to this cognitive experience that Sachin mentioned. So you mentioned that, you know, at any point in time you might be engaged in a task, but a small part of you is thinking about, you know, maybe what you could be doing on your device. The term that we use for that phenomenon in educational psychology is “motivational interference.” So motivational interference is the detriment to on-task motivation that’s caused by the presence of a more available – by an available leisure alternative to that task. Now my phone gives me access to limitless leisure alternatives when I’m engaged and in an academic task if I’m a student, and students tend to rate those leisure alternatives as being more appealing than the academic tasks that they’re working on. And so – and it doesn’t have to just be an academic task. It could be while you’re cooking supper or while you are at work. And so motivational interference that’s induced by the presence of these really tempting devices, you know, I would – I would argue is it kind of this motivational phenomenon that we all – almost all of us probably – just experience on an ongoing basis, while I’m writing a paper or while I’m grading students work. If my phone’s nearby, a small part of me wants to check that.  And so – when students have their phone on their person in class – easy to access – then, you know, we might expect that they would be experiencing that sense of motivational interference. And that can make the device so appealing to them. 

[Matthew Brady]: If I can, I’ll go one further. And I know I don’t have – the psychology isn’t there yet. But if we’re talking about the phone itself and the experience on the phone, everything about the phone is designed to be addictive. I’m in the camp that these kids are addicted to their phones on different levels. From the intermittent reward of scrolling socials, to the shininess, to the colors, to the dopamine hits that they get,  that for me is that main appeal. I just – the beginning of the school year — and I just gave all my kids a talk about why I collect phones, and they’re up in the front of the room away from them. It was weird because every time I said “phone – your phones are up here, your phones are up here” – they were probably in a class of 28 – maybe about 4 or 5  that would look at their phones. Every time I said phone, they just looked at their phone, and I just kind of got a little bit creeped out by that. I think time will show us that the attraction is much, much stronger than we’re kind of playing with right now and thinking, “oh, it’s just a little thing.”

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thank you. Let’s  talk about phone policy related to this. And actually Matt, I’d be curious – and kind of building off of this beginning of the school year feeling – how do phone policies fit into a broader conversation about technology-use in classrooms? And maybe related to that –  how can we think about the use of different digital technology, and what counts as helpful or harmful right now?  Are there – I guess maybe Matt,  is that related to this? Are there technologies that aren’t separated from students that you tend to integrate into your classrooms?

[Matthew Brady]: I will use – we have Chromebooks or we’re kind of a blend of Chromebooks and bring your own device, if the student has one available. And I tend to stay away from Chromebooks throughout. Although that said, today they were on Chromebooks because I needed a little bit of a breather. The thing that we’re kind of – and I don’t want to get interwoven with this now – the thing that we’re facing is A.I. and the omnipresence of A.I. in every app and every computer. And so that’s kind of a larger problem, because if they – if I have a quiz on Canvas, say –  which is our LMS or system that we use to – for content – they can use Copilot. Copilot’s baked into Edge. So that’s a problem. And so as a result of that, I have a lot of teachers in my building who are just like, I’m going 100% Luddite and collecting phones and paper-pencil for everything. I’m testing only on paper-pencil. That said – and also with Google’s change on YouTube access – our school has taken YouTube off of the public WiFi – so our students can’t access YouTube in school. It’s a very strange time. I do just – I want to go back and say – while I am kind of leaning towards an absolutist about phones,  yes, there are plenty of apps. I teach physics, and there’s a terrific app that has a sound triggered microphone that you can use to measure the acceleration due to gravity better than anybody ever could with a stopwatch – click-click back and forth. And what used to take a whole day to collect data for now takes 15 minutes. So there are benefits, but I weigh each of those and just – I really have a tough time coming up on – this is what we should be using this. We should be going forward with this. And again, with attention spans, I unfortunately have to make sure any kind of readings on a 1-to-1, or readings that I put on there, they – either the readings have to be short or they have to be videos. And part of me dies when I do that.

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Go ahead Sachin.

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]: Yeah. If I could just jump in. So I think there’s – Antero as you mentioned – a difference between phones and other technologies that might be utilized, mainly because, you know, the phones are personal devices and a lot of what is on there doesn’t necessarily support learning, even though it could. And so if you imagine, you know, Chromebooks being used for a particular purpose, and then when that purpose has been served, you know, they’re kind of put away or something like that. I think there’s a real big difference between that, and then, a student’s personal device that is on them all of the time. That being said – you know I started off my introduction saying I’ve kind of been advocating for a more critical orientation to all sorts of digital technologies – I point to, in 2023, Unesco issued this global, education monitoring report on digital technology use. And it does a really good job of looking at pretty much all the evidence in different contexts around the world  about different technologies. You know: what evidence shows that they’ve improved learning? What evidence shows that they haven’t, and kind of everything in between. But kind of the headline takeaway of that report is that jurisdictions around the world have spelled – spent tons and tons of money on all of these technologies, but the evidence that they’ve actually improved student learning is limited. And in fact, most of that evidence showing positive effects tends to come from industry. It tends to come from these providers selling these technologies. And I think when schools and school districts are making decisions, they’re often swayed by a lot of that because it’s not like people working in schools have the access or capacity to sift through all the different kinds of research on these topics and figure out contradicting studies and all that sort of stuff. And so I think in general it’s important to be mindful. And, by default, I would adopt a more critical stance. There was another study in 2023 that kind of – it was published in the Review of Education Research – that looked at student learning on, kind of, analog like traditional reading methods versus reading things on a digital device or online. And what it found is that, reading comprehension tends to be significantly higher when using traditional methods. The exact reasons for that are unknown, but it’s kind of speculated or maybe plausible that, you know, when reading digital devices again, that distraction potential is just there because there’s a lot more you can do when reading on a tablet or on a computer than if you just have a kind of a paper book. And so I think all of those things need to be taken into consideration in the broader conversation around digital technology use. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: I’m curious – 

[Matthew Brady]: And if I can just piggy back on that real quick. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Go ahead Matt.

[Matthew Brady]: But I totally agree with what you’re saying there and working in the school system –  kind of teachers roll their eyes that the central office have never met a snake oil salesman they didn’t fall in love with and believe. There was a  – I don’t even think it was a paper, but it was – somebody kind of took a critical eye to some well known digital platforms and their claims and really drilled down into the fine print on their claims. And it was – the results that they saw were among the self-motivated students. And “the self-motivated students” is a subset of your actual student population. So among the 5% that are actually self-motivated – not the 95% that need push and push and push – that 5% saw this amazing increase. And when you dilute that out among your whole push, and it’s kind of nothing. And again nobody who’s, you know, signing purchase orders really has a savvy, or the time to look into the claims that are being made about these platforms and edtech that’s coming their way. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: I’m curious – so yeah –  I think, you know self-motivation feels like an important topic by the time you get to places where you’re able to measure academic progress. But I’m curious, Melanie, when we talk about these devices. Right. You’re thinking about very early childhood, young children. Are there pros and cons around different kinds of devices and technology from your perspective around this? 

[Dr. Melanie Johnson]: Yes. Different kinds of devices – well, first of all I think – you know, we must understand that those of us on this call take for granted a lot of activities or – and resources that young children ages birth to 5 haven’t yet acquired, right. So, neurologically they don’t have the receptive ability to receive language and to process the language. They don’t – they don’t even talk oftentimes until they get to a certain point, right – certain scaffolding. And so children – that little brain that’s developing 90% of its neural synapses between ages birth to 5 –  need stimulation from an adult  basically that interferes and that shows them what a smiling face or a well-pleased face looks like, or a displeased face looks like. And, how to use their mouth to make certain sounds. So all of these things that we take for granted are neurologically responsible for face-to-face interaction for –  between adults and young children. However, when we are absolute about banning screen time and certain kinds of devices in the classroom, we disregard the fact that there’s a neural typical child who’s learning, you know, in the typical fashion. There’s a child in the classroom with neurodivergence. And so the neurodivergent child often needs technical assistance, and we’re finding that technology is just kind of bridging the gap between what we understood learning to look like and what we are now realizing that technology can enhance and and can illuminate. So the kinds of devices that I think are more appropriate in the classroom, especially for early childhood education, are those where the child delivers a task instead of  the task being delivered to them. So in early childhood education, we don’t have the perils of –  most often of you know – phone use and phone distractions and a parent texting saying “it’s soccer after school” and you know “don’t be on your phone too long on social media”. That’s not our challenge. Our challenge is making sure that a child is not using Siri and Alexa to ask for information as to how to do things, because they need to learn those things through experiences. And that brain is developing those neural synapses by those experiences. So, the kinds of devices that we use – we use A.I. enhanced devices in the classroom and early education. For a child is actually using manipulatives to learn their fine motor skills, placing them on the tablet, and then the tablet gives them some responses back. So the responses might be if you haven’t retained that information, we’ll repeat it. And it knows to – that device knows that because of  A.I., and I think that’s great in terms of individualized instruction, and if they do extraordinarily well, the device will come back with more rigor. So those are the kind of devices that we recommend. And of course, there are other technologies – we use baby coding in the classroom and the like and just have amazing outcomes with children learning social emotional skills, executive function, and other academic skills in that vein. 

[Dr. Abe Flannigan]: So Melanie had been – and mentioned  cognitive development in early childhood. I think that another element related to human cognition and development – it’s important to remember here – is, and somebody had mentioned dopamine earlier, but then we didn’t really elaborate too much on that. And the research on the relationship between device use and dopamine is obviously still in its relative infancy. Right. We’re only a few years into those studies and longitudinal research – you know, obviously difficult to do given that the proliferation of devices is really a relatively, at least, new phenomenon. But what we do know is that regardless of the age that a human is exposed to devices – that those devices have, you know, kind of an addicting quality to them. And often that’s related to that dopamine feedback loop. And so I think the National Institute of Health, estimates that about 20 to 30% of adolescents show problematic smartphone use or smartphone addiction. And often that’s linked to habitual use of those devices earlier in life that just continued. And one factor that’s often blamed for this addiction is dopamine, the pleasure chemical. The explanation that smartphones kind of deliver that frequent burst of rewarding stimuli – whether it is, a pleasurable video, if you’re older, you’re on social media and you’re getting likes and notifications and comments on your posts. Over time, that constant stimulation and that bombarding of dopamine makes it so that every day activities and just kind of everyday life starts to feel more dull and less rewarding. And if we give devices to kids earlier on – and don’t regulate that device use – then we run the risk of kids at a younger age starting to feel like elevated dopamine is normal, and that a normal level of dopamine is uncomfortable. And again, I went off by saying that the research on dopamine is still in its relative infancy. And so based on the work that I’m familiar with, what I just said is accurate. Five years from now, we might find that exposure to devices during really early childhood might not have as pronounced an effect on the dopamine pleasure system. But based on what we know right now, that seems to be the case. And so I think that that’s just important and kind of it kind of relates to my position – that device use should be heavily restricted in classrooms. We shouldn’t, I don’t believe, ban devices because of the potential that they hold. But, you know, if we want to make sure that kids remain in a kind of a healthy development pattern, then that’s a consideration is how frequent device use relates to their dopamine levels and their experiences.

[Dr. Melanie Johnson]: I do completely agree with that. And, you know, because of the addictive nature of the devices, I think what we need to bear in mind is that in early education, you have screen time limitations, but you have so many other excitable interests in the day. You know, a day of a classroom environment. You’re going outside, you’re looking at colors, birds are flying. All of those things are far more excitable to a young brain developing than they are to us. So we’ve taken it for granted. So to think about my device that I left back in the classroom that I had a really good time on when I’m out in the playground and Johnny’s teaching me that it’s my turn to play or not my turn to play, or it’s time to kick the ball and look up at the big firmament. I think those kinds of experience – with making sure that there’s diversity in the cognitive learning environment – ensures that there is no overreliance upon that device that I left back in the classroom that I had six – five or six minutes on. So to ensure that we diversified the learning instruction in an early environment is critical.

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thank you. I’m curious how 1-to-1 device policies factor into this? Do any of you have any major pros and cons you can share around – that the 1-to-1 relationship or any research related to that you can bring into this conversation?

[Matthew Brady]: I have – rather than research – just my experience of watching that the 1-to-1 is good when managed well. Again – get them off the phone to see the breadth of information and resources that they can find online. That should have revolutionized learning and education. It kind of didn’t. But again, I think it’s kind of going back to what Abe was saying, the distraction element  – the, the shiny thing, shiny thing that gives them what they’re looking for. I had students just today – I promise you, I did not frontload my lesson today for this – they had to take a short quiz-like thing. And I went by and one student – everybody in the school knows that you can get on to,  it’s a math game site, and it lets you play these really rudimentary, and it’s not blocked – and so this girl was playing math games and I said, “did you take the check for understanding.” “No.” “It’s due by the end of the period.” “Oh I guess I should do it.” So kind of the same – similar –  the same problems that we see with phones. We can have those on 1-to-1 devices unless they’re managed correctly. Now we do have Go Guardian, which is kind of the big brother thing that I can sit and look at everybody’s screens. However, there are equity issues with that because it only monitors computers – school computers, school issued Chromebooks on the network, not bring your own device. And so when I start thinking of just, I’m going to go down there and blow up on this kid who’s doing something else other than the assignment on his computer – there are you know eight, ten, twelve blank spots I can’t see. So I’m really monitoring a subgroup which has socioeconomic ramifications of  – this is a student that either doesn’t have a device or are not allowed to bring their device in the school – so 1-to-1’s good – can be good. But, also, it has its own pitfalls and potholes in the road. 

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]: So if I could add on to that, you know, 1-to-1 device policies, you know, there’s an equity element to it, right? Like, so, if we provide all students, you know, with their own devices, that helps ameliorate some of the digital divide that, you know, we’ve been worried about  for a long time. However, – and going back to what I was saying earlier about how these technologies are used – the degree to which this is actually going to improve student learning or not has to do with how they’re incorporated into the classroom. They offer opportunities for pedagogy to be changed. But like, to what degree is that actually happening in practice? Because what’s happened with a lot of digital technologies is they’ve just kind of allowed for the replication of similar types of teaching but now with the added distraction factor that Matt just mentioned. Like when I first started teaching, my school district spent, I don’t know how many millions of dollars on SMART Boards, for example. And then basically what happened with the SMART Boards is teachers were just doing the things they were doing on the blackboard, on the SMART Board. And like a lot of that interactive functioning wasn’t really taken advantage of. And so that’s one of the concerns, as you have more time on devices, is the pedagogy actually being changed in a positive direction, taking into account the distraction? But the other thing I’ve become increasingly concerned about is, I’m seeing now, there’s more of like a reverse digital divide when it comes to socioeconomic status and screen time. And by that, I mean we’re seeing evidence that it’s students from low socioeconomic status, families, that are now having the most challenges with excessive screen time use. And this is where things like phone bans come into play. Because some of the studies that have been done on jurisdictions that have banned phones have found that the benefits actually come from improvements among students who are among the lowest achieving previously, which tend to again overlap with those coming from low SES families. And so I think all of that needs to be taken into account when we talk about 1-to-1 device policies, because they’re, I think, at its core, meant to address some of these inequities around this digital divide. But then to what degree are we kind of exacerbating it in another direction? 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: A really interesting, kind of parallel finding – so Sachin was mentioning that those 1- to-1 policies can be really helpful for students from traditionally disadvantaged lower SES backgrounds because it can help close the technology gap. It’s also interesting that the research on device bans has been shown to be most helpful for the academic achievement of students from lower performing and disadvantaged, lower SES backgrounds. So giving students devices in a 1-to-1 policy helps the academic achievement of students from those backgrounds. But so does taking away, or at least restricting rather, the use of the devices. So what does that tell us? That tells us that we just need to be strategic about how the devices are implemented in the classroom, which I think is essentially what Sachin’s point was making there at the beginning. And so, I just think that’s a really interesting kind of parallel finding there – that you really want to do what we can to lift those students up, giving them devices can lift them up, but so can taking those devices away. And so, it’s just important to be mindful. And there was a meta-analysis published in the journal Computers in Education, back in 2016 by Sung, Chang, and Liu. And essentially what they found was that the use of things like smartphones during instruction improves student learning compared to traditional instruction. So you hear that and it sounds like, okay, great, if we use devices during instruction, then that will in and of itself enhance learning relative to traditional instruction. Well, I think it’s important when people read this literature that they make sure that they understand what the conditions, where devices were used – what that’s being compared to here in their meta-analysis. It seems like traditional instruction just meant, like, lecture. So the teacher sits there, lectures to the students, and they’re not being active. Not being engaged. Well, we know that that’s the worst way to teach, that students need to be actively engaged, whether it’s behaviorally or cognitively. And so a lot of the research showing that devices in and of themselves are beneficial for learning are compared to some of the most poor  teaching methods. I will say that there are studies that show that you have to have –  that active learning can be facilitated better with some online platforms than you know, some popular, traditional, you know, real world active learning strategies. But all that’s to say is that we just need to be strategic. And when we’re reading the research, we need to know what the device use conditions are being compared to. That teachers actually can do a really good job without devices facilitating active learning in ways that, you know, support learning just as much as the active supported by the devices does. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thanks. Sorry. I’m trying to jot down notes analog about this digital conversation while we’re talking, so catching up. I’m struck by maybe something Abe, you said earlier as well as, Sachin – the way you started your introduction, 40 minutes ago, however long ago that was, and, that is, I think you mentioned all of us grapple with this, right? So, like you, I have – my phone is next to me and is pulling my attention at any given time. If you know – if there was an emergency and my family checked in with me, my phone would be the way that that would be, shared with me, right? And likewise, even though it’s not on my phone, we have a zoom, back channel, right? And I am using that back channel to regularly engage in this conversation, check in with panelists, check in on other aspects of this as we’re going along, right? And so just to know, that I think as Abe pointed to, like, the potential of these devices – whether it be a 1-to-1 device or a phone, right – is always there, and just trying to juggle all of that. I think to me, the struggle with all of this is – knowing that the quote unquote “real world”, right, the professional world that I live in means that I use much of my cell phone in my day to day life, right, in my professional life, in my personal life. And I think we disregard the opportunity to think of meaningful uses with our phones by outright banning them, right? I think there’s a challenge, and I’ll go a bit further than that and say that not only do we miss this opportunity, but we actually shift kids into a particular class orientation around labor through banning cell phones. And what I mean is, the place where you see cell phones banned in the professional world outside of K-12 schooling, is service-level jobs – like working in a fast food restaurant. Those are the places where you’re not allowed to use your cell phone during work hours. And otherwise, you are using your cell phone. You are encouraged to think about how your cell phone is meaningfully brought into your labor use. And so our cell phone bans, are we preparing kids for labor, in service level jobs, or are we thinking about preparing kids for the broader, complex world where addiction is a real issue that we’re – I am not trying to disregard this issue, but I think we should think through – Matt, I totally agree with the use of snake oil salesman in this conversation, right, – that, I think the people who often times offer the solution to phone addiction are the exact same people who create the products that students are addicted to, right? And I think there’s this kind of awful way where the procurement offices for school districts are oftentimes invested in what is the latest Silicon Valley company offering them, rather than thinking through, how do we invest in teachers and students and communities? So, I just wanted to name this as the kind of maybe as a broader question if folks have it, is the like, what are the good things that come out of digital learning? What does – what do good relationships with these devices – what might they look like? How might we redesign these differently? And then from there, we’re going to pivot into talking about early childhood from there in a second. But Abe, I see you’re unmuted. 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: Yeah. So I just want to, so essentially the kind of the heart of your argument is that if we if we ban phones from classrooms, then we’re kind of, taking away the opportunity from students to self-regulate and or to learn how to self-regulate their use of devices, within the – when it’s appropriate versus when it’s inappropriate, right? And so we want them to be able to learn how to self-regulate their behavior, and if we ban the devices we take that learning opportunity away, is that kind of at the heart of your – 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I don’t think we have a particularly good curriculum around that learning opportunity, particularly because as adults, we’re also probably pretty bad at it, collectively. But I think we – I think if we’re not doing it in schools, where else are we learning it, is probably part of this issue. Yeah. 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: Because I feel like – so smartphones have been pretty widely available since 2012. This is like the second or third time I’ve said that. So I probably should have looked up if that’s an actual factual statement, but it’s been over a decade. And so, we’ve had a decade worth of data to show that if students have access to their phones during class, they really just don’t learn how to self-regulate their use of that phone effectively. And so I think that that speaks to a need. And Antero, you just mentioned it,  we don’t really have a good curriculum right now to help students learn how to self regulate their device use during class. I completely agree with that. With your statement there, that is an important life skill that we all need to be able to learn. If I didn’t have that ability, it would look really weird if I was up there teaching my students while scrolling through my social media. But if we’ve got more than a decade to show that students just don’t learn that skill naturally, and like you said, I think that calls for some adjustments in maybe curriculum and how we teach that skill in schools. 

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]: And Antero, if I could jump in, I think it’s important to remember that these devices and any distracting or addicting qualities affect different groups of people differently. And so, you know, Abe mentioned the 20 or 30% of kids that might have problematic cell phone use, right? That being said, there are a lot of students who are able to successfully navigate these digital environments. We – you know, there’s kids who do really well who are very like high functioning in school and elsewhere. But in terms of – that’s the problem of having kind of one blanket policy for all students is that they’re really heterogeneous. And the benefits and the potential drawbacks are different across different groups of students. So any benefits you might get from a phone ban are going to be really differentiated across different types of students. Some students might actually do worse under that environment. I think as Melanie mentioned, you know, students with certain particular learning needs, right, might be disadvantaged under a situation where those sorts of technologies are restricted. And we might – we kind of need to take that into account when these are being implemented. One other thing I’ll say though, is sometimes it’s in the absence, though, of some of these technologies that we really get a good sense of how they’re affecting us. So one of the things I do from time to time is go on these meditation retreats where you actually, like, surrender your phone for a given period of time. The ones I go to are like ten days. And it’s really weird because, like, on the – after the end of the ten days – in the beginning it’s really hard, but at the end of the ten days, you have to get your device back, and the last time I was there, I was kind of like, do I have to take this back? Like, can you just keep it? And when I got it back and all the notifications started coming or whatever, it was only then I started realizing like, wow, like I didn’t realize how there’s this ambient level of, I don’t even know, anxiety or stress or something, just interacting with these devices. And so sometimes carving out parts of the day where students are kind of, away from that can give them some perspective about how to engage with it more mindfully.

[Matthew Brady]: And if I could put a couple thoughts to that from the trenches, I know this argument well, this is the “kids are going to have to live with cell phones all their lives, so they might as well learn how to use them”. Alright. And I got that most recently, our new principal said that and I blanched. I agree with that. I agree with that. But when it comes from parents – and I hope this doesn’t make the whole audience rise up against me – I have questions when it’s the parent saying that to us, because that’s sometimes just a cloak – “I want to be able to text my son/daughter any time I need to”. But my kind of feeling about that is if it’s the parents who are saying, “kids are going to have to use – why does the school have a ban? Kids are going to use these the rest of their lives, they need to learn how to use them”. Two things jump to mind – “are you with me 50/50 on that?,” specifically one question, “where is your student’s phone at night?”. If it’s in the bedroom, then you’re not teaching them how to self-regulate. And I know I am going into a minefield by suggesting that this – that parents have a piece in this. And I know, but I got to go there. That’s how I see it from my side, because all my phones up front, they just buzz and buzz, even though they’re supposed to be off –  state law says they’re supposed to be off – and that’s a fight I got to get into. Yeah. And that one just kind of, like,  took my whole brain and heart, so I can’t think of my other point with it. But I’ll probably come back to it. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Abe, I think you were trying to show us something that –

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: Yeah, I just tried to show The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. If nobody here has read that, it’s a really good book that makes a lot of the arguments that Matt was making there – about how in the household we need to be more strategic about how we organize our households in our kids’ lives in ways that support responsible device use. Because, like Matt said, if the parents aren’t with you 50/50 on that, if device use is just a free for all outside of the classroom, then why would we expect students to behave any differently inside the classroom? 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thanks. I want to age us down a little bit, down to preschool – and maybe Melanie can help us think about – how should we think about classrooms and technologies in preschool versus older ages? 

[Dr. Melanie Johnson]: Yeah. So the challenges are different. You know, we’re not checking to see if generative language has created a paper, written a paper for them, that they can’t defend and things of that nature. It really is about, you know, play-based learning. And because we have A.I. natives, digital natives, we want to make sure that the children are able to create and learn to compound working memory for executive function skills and things of that nature, and the kinds of devices that I think would be appropriate are those that do so.  And I’ve got a little clip that I’d like to share, which is how we use technology in the classroom. So in the early education space, the kind of technology is interactive, physical body-on, creating, you know, creativity elements in the classroom, you know, motor skills, and all of those things that are very necessary for young children to prosper and learn to navigate the larger world outside of their home environment. So here, I’ll just silence myself and let you see this clip. I think you’ll get a pretty good understanding, how we’re using screen time, if you see it on the robot in that classroom. 

[Video of children and teachers interacting with a robot in the classroom. The robot is equipped with a tablet playing videos of different animals (i.e., gorilla, elephant, mouse). As each animal is displayed on the tablet, the robot carries out an action that aligns with the animal’s behaviour (e.g.,mimicking a mouse eating cheese). The children mimic the robot’s actions while the teachers provide further explanation of both the animal and the robot’s behaviour]. 

[Dr. Melanie Johnson]: So if you can see, screen time that encourages, you know, physical, not just hands-on but body- on, kind of interactions is really, really important. Learning to work in groups, we never – we’re not into one-on-one, 1-to-1 devices in the early education space because children need to learn how to at least play alongside each other, and then learn from each other and, how to navigate the world with each other. So – but the other thing that I would think is essential in terms of a digital device in the classroom, and early education space is, there’s a lot of reticence around assessing a child’s ability to perform or to be kindergarten ready, just assessing children or evaluating children, entirely. And because children learn through play, the way in which we are assessing children is typically still analog. When we’re evaluating digital natives, who use play based learning with digital devices, to what degree – you know, that’s up to a very well informed educator. But I would like to see a device developed – and remember, we are not co-developing these devices with software developers, they are going out for profit, making the shiniest bell and whistle they possibly can, creating that dopamine effect that we talked about earlier – but we’re looking for devices that are truly creating skills to navigate the world. So, I would like for that device to also not only be body-on, but to give evaluative knowledge to the teacher so they can make real-time decisions as to how to divert the child, or to build upon the knowledge that they’re exhibiting. So, the ability to assess the child’s progress and show us that they are demonstrating growth toward school readiness is integral for that kind of digital device in a classroom – the ideal one. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thanks, Melanie. There is a question that came in kind of related to this topic that I’m curious if you have thoughts around. And it was just the kind of,  this ideation kind of, design space. But if – what would the perfect digital device to use with preschoolers look like? If you could design anything, right, you get to be Jony Ive for the rest of the afternoon, you get to design it however you want, do you have thoughts on what that device would look like? I think you had some thoughts on that desired outcome around evaluation and, informing teacher decision making, any thoughts around the design?

[Dr. Melanie Johnson]: Yes. It would be multi-sensory. It wouldn’t just be a flat – one-dimensional. Because these children are learning from a three-dimensional world. They need to learn from a three-dimensional world. So, where you’re able to use your hands and your voice and your ears and your eyes, but also you’re able to apply manipulatives to this device. It cannot be one-dimensional, and I would very much like it to be engaging and learning and thoughtfully done with educational theory – not just educational theory – but early childhood educational theory. But also, as I mentioned previously, that it is able to evaluate through play, that a child is demonstrating growth. Because we can say, you know, we really don’t want children to use digital devices in the classroom or to have those devices available, and oftentimes I find the divide between have and have nots, the affluent are making these kinds of statements. And as Matt mentioned earlier, you’re seeing kind of a reverse. I think it was Matt who said, maybe it was Sachin, I can’t recall, but a panelist today said there was kind of a reverse digital divide, whereas,  low income children are having overuse of technology and affluent children are having underuse. And as much as, you know, we hear that even in Silicon Valley that nannies are being fired because they offer a digital device to children. Those children still have access to digital technology and digital literacy, which is an additional language. Their monitors in their cars are so sophisticated that even if we say there’s no digital device in your classroom just to get a drink of water out the refrigerator in their homes will require digital experiences. So I don’t want to – I want to make sure that the digital device or the applications are still available to children, specifically from low income communities and families. Because remember, the digital divide is not just access to bandwidth, it is not only the access to technology, digital technology, but the ability to use technology effectively. And we’re setting up that similar divide that we’ve always had – for more than 50 years – if we ban technology in all forms in the early education space. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thanks, Melanie. I guess I’m, so it’s – when we talk about, kind of feedback, and getting feedback on devices, often times I worry that some of the apps that, are, you know, again, to the snake oil of it all, are sold to districts, are basically the kinds of things that good quality educators should be able to derive from students with, you know, in an analog sense, right? And, you know, to that point, right, I am curious about what this looks like from the teacher and instructional side of things. Matt, I’m going to ask you first, one of the questions that came in for us, asked, “What about screens used by the teachers? How can we determine the added value of screens or technology in class?”. And I guess I’m curious, like, do you have a sense of, when do you decide intentionally to use technology, not use technology? Melanie, looking at that video that you shared, in addition to the robot that was kind of in center stage for that video there, that was like a digitally robust classroom with lots of other kinds of technology kind of happening in the background as well. And so Matt, I guess I’m curious, can you speak to what your classroom setting looks like and what screens look like in your instructional decision? 

[Matthew Brady]: My classroom settings, still kind of, well, it’s not like it was in Covid when it resembled a TV studio, and I had 3 or 4 screens set up all around. But for me, technology is kind of a last resort. The case in point, we have – and our school subscribes to an app for science, and I believe, it’s science and math, but mostly for science called Gizmos. And they are little digital, kind of low, low tech-ish looking, little digital things that have study guide questions, all this other stuff. And as a physics teacher, I kind of look at that with a skeptical eye and just think, I can do that. I mean, there’s a classic physics experiment or thought experiment called The Monkey and the Hunter where you shoot a monkey out of a tree – I can’t do that, but I could set up something similar to that. And, or I could have my students work together to build that. And my thinking goes that they get way more out of that. Any kind of thing that I can turn into a hands-on. I do have other teachers in my building who are, like, kind of just, “Well, we can just use Gizmos. We can use Gizmos.” My thinking also goes with, these kids live their – part of their digital lives in fantasy worlds, if we’re talking about video games, where everything is set up and programed to behave a certain way, I don’t think it’s too big of a leap to think that, well, this Gizmos is set up to behave a certain way, and wow, it always gets the exact right answer. With science, they need to learn that science is messy. Not a preprogramed way – preprogramed answer in there. So yes, there are. But again, we kind of like start weaving this into screens and then, well, what can A.I. do? Because A.I. can do some really interesting things. But again, that’s a whole other literacy city that we need to go to for that. But for me personally, again, I guess you could probably figure that, I – it’s a last resort. Inquiry based, is hands on for me, and that’s how I want to keep it, to just get to that messiness of science that sometimes you do everything right, you still get the wrong result. That’s how it works.

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: I’m curious. So, you know, we’ve got these questions around, growing, or mental health. One of the questions that came up, kind of along the same line, was with growing awareness of screen time and mental health impact on kids, why aren’t schools talking about removing or limiting 1-to-1 devices? Sachin, I’m curious if you have thoughts around this and if others do as well.

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]: Going back to a bit about what I said earlier, I think it’s important to differentiate between the different types of digital technologies. And when it comes to concerns around mental health, I think it’s smartphones and really social media use in particular that has drawn the most concern about some of the impacts on kids’ mental health. And I think that’s why you’re seeing more appetite around phone restrictions. Again, it’s not just the phones themselves, it’s what they’re being used for and what’s on them. So there was a study – it was funded by Common Sense Media and done by researchers at the University of Michigan, a year or two ago – that looked at what kids actually use their phones for during the school day. And not surprising, the number one thing is, accessing social media applications. And so I think that’s why you’re seeing the restriction of phone use being framed around student mental health in addition to any academic impacts that might occur. When it comes to the other devices, again, you – any restrictions that be – that are put in place really need to have support from the different stakeholders involved in order to be effective. And I think because of some of the equity issues that we just outlined, like removing 1-to-1 device policies – I don’t know what level of support you would have for that, amongst sort of different groups, because, again, although they might be distracting, they’re different from, say, students’ personal devices. And I would worry about trying to move too fast in any particular direction. I mean, although a lot of places have announced phone bans, the key point about all of it is, how is this actually implemented and to what degree is this improving student outcomes among varying dimensions? That’s one of the things I’m studying right now. But that research is kind of in its infancy. And so I think we need to take it one step at a time as we move forward.

[Matthew Brady]: Antero, real quick, if we’re talking public schools and kind of the question of why – why does one side say phones are bad, one side says one – and one piece of the same system – I kind of have to go back on just my experience. The public education system is broken at every level in its own unique way, and the pieces aren’t talking to each other and the pieces aren’t working together. Well, if any audience members have a really well-functioning public education system near them, cherish it. That’s not the norm. Everybody has their own place they have to be – sometimes mandated place that they have to be – where you might have the school counselor saying, “This student always needs to have their phone so they can dot-dot-dot”, where administration says “No one can have their phone”. And individual teachers vary on how they feel about it. Where a science teacher might say, “I need your phones out today”, and the ELA teacher might say, “I need your phones put away”. So consistency within a school, consistency within a hallway is just really, really hard to find, which is a whole big mess. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: So actually, Matt, related to that, I think  we have a bunch of questions, particularly around parents and around safety related to this. And, you know, if we think of the timeline of cell phones, they’re also, you know, they’re increasing ubiquity in schools, is also with a rise of, additional kinds of school shootings right in  US context is – as awful as that is – as a factor. But I think one thing that we oftentimes hear from  parents is wanting to be able to communicate with students in issues of emergency. And particularly, you hear this in the midst of school shooting, right? That was a question that came into the panel. And so I guess I’m curious how folks would respond to a question of, how do we address perceptions of student safety or how can school safety be managed or communicate with parents other than through phones, given the kind of landscape of where we are in this country right now?

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: So yeah, earlier this year in June, the US House of Representatives, the House Committee on Education and The Workforce, convened a hearing that was titled Screen Times in Schools. And one of the individuals who delivered testimony during that session was Jean Twenge, who’s an educational social psychologist. And a lot of her testimony was based on recommendations from Ken Trump, who’s the president of the National School Safety and Security Services, and basically made the case – while citing examples – that the presence of phones in schools does not contribute to student physical safety. And in some ways can make it worse. And so I’m going to outline four points that were made during that testimony. The first, is that if  students are attending to their phones during an emergency, they might miss important instructions that are given to them by, you know, the teachers, administrators, whoever is around and in charge of keeping them safe. The noise from the phones can alert shooters to where the people are hiding. So your son or daughter might be huddled in a closet or behind a desk, and if a shooter walks by and hears the phone vibrate, for instance, then that’s going to alert them to their presence. Too many people trying to call or text in the same location can use up bandwidth, make it difficult for authorities to communicate. And this last one was actually something that – a problem that we had at the high school shooting in Windsor, Georgia – that when students get to their phones and tell their parents that an emergency situation is happening, well, parents hop in their cars and try to get to the school. That can lead to traffic congestion and make it difficult for police, ambulances or the first responders to get on scene and, and help. And so that’s something that actually happened here in the state of Georgia. And so, in that testimony, the kind of point was made that phones haven’t actually been shown to increase student physical safety, especially in those kinds of emergencies. And so these arguments are more about trying to provide caregivers with a sense of security and safety when that sense of security and safety can actually be given by something that can make the situation more dangerous for their students.

[Matthew Brady]: And  jumping on that with Abe – this is going to sound self-serving – I wrote a couple pieces on this on my Substack, which I think is linked somewhere here. But yeah, I know the Ken Trump talking points as well. And, I’m sure Abe, you’ll agree, what you say and all the data in the world – and I make the same argument – doesn’t matter a bit when it comes to my child and the possibility that there might be a shooting. And that’s the uphill battle this summer with the horrible floods in Texas. There was some hay made on the point that they didn’t have phones and oh my God, if they had had phones, those kids, those counselors in the floods might still be alive. It’s not that easy of a black-white. There’s coverage issues and things like that and all kinds of stuff. And you can’t even talk about that without people thinking you’re getting political about it. But I made the point saying that’s the argument that sinks 100 phone policies. That’s the argument that gets little Julie sleep at – putting in a dud phone where she has a real phone in her backpack all the time because mom and dad say, “you follow our rules and we need to know you’re always safe”. But all those points, yeah. And also to the point that the administration and the security people need to get one narrative out. And that sounds a little kind of weird in this world of disinformation, but they don’t need rumors flying that we had a school shooting. And apparently this, according to what the news was reporting, from an unverified source, the shooter was targeting other schools and on his way to other schools. That did not help anybody at all. So yeah, it’s a tough – that’s probably the toughest argument to make if you’re trying to make a phone ban – is to get parents on board saying, “they make schools less safe, not more safe, but less safe.”

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: Thank you both. Yeah. And it occurs to me at the very obvious point right in this line of really awful kind of discussion, right, like the nature of what – have to talk about, the ways that cell phones operate as a, as a social Band-Aid for much bigger endemic issues, right? So, Matt, you started by reflecting on the brokenness of the US public education system. And in some ways, we placed the demand on this,  the singular device, to somehow fix that, while also keeping kids safe when there’s other mechanisms that maybe could – there’s other worlds that are possible, right. Maybe as a kind of a very obvious point here. Maybe one other thought though, right, so recognizing that parents can kind of be the stop-all to phone ban policies, right, in this conversation. I’m curious from folks – either based on research on your own experiences – what are effective ways that we’ve seen schools and districts involve either students or parents in defining or implementing different kinds of phone use policies from phone-free policies and bans, to other kinds of relationships? Have there been ways where you’ve been able to bring in students, rather than the kind of here’s the policy, now adjust to – adjust or, you know, resist and kind of go through a fugitive policy practice? 

[Matthew Brady]: If I could start this off, there are two ways that I’ve seen this done. One is a charismatic and strong leader in the school. And just saying what you said. “Yeah, we’re going to do this. Too bad.” I spoke with a principal in a school in Alabama who embraced the Yondr pouches and had – he just – and I said, “How did you convince anybody that this was the right thing to do?” And he just said, “I didn’t ask. I just said, ‘we’re doing it’.” And they had terrific results with the Yondr pouches. The other way is harder and it’s grassroots. And it has to start with the parents and everything that we’ve been saying here about the data of what – that schools are less safe with phones and the outcomes are worse. And even the digital divide and how it’s better results for banning phones with some populations than others. All that data has to be collected and parents need to meet, and you need that critical mass of parents that will tip it over and get the administration to go, “Oh, we better do this. Otherwise these parents might – in the world we live in – these parents might take their kids and go to charter school and take our dollars with them.” Don’t rely on your teachers. I again, my Substack – I tried for a year and a half to get my school and my district to do it, and they don’t have to listen to teachers, so they just ignore us. But parents run the show, and that’s the way to push it. 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: It’s – I’m sorry Sachin, you can go first. 

[Dr. Sachin Maharaj]:  Oh, no. I was just going to say, part of the study I’m doing right now is looking at teacher perspectives. And I think, you know, for the teachers that want to implement these restrictions, barriers are often presented if parents are unsupportive. But also if their school administration is unsupportive. But their school administration is often responsive to parental pressure one way or the other. And so if there are groups of parents that would like to see a more restrictive or consistently implemented policy – kind of piggybacking on what Matt just said – that needs to be communicated clearly to the school administration and to the teachers, in terms of the places that I’ve seen that have done this, maybe a bit better than others. I think districts really need to have an authentic, robust consultation process as these are being put into place. And that serves two purposes: one, to get kind of input and feedback from all the different people involved, but two, also so that there are clear and consistent expectations among everybody. And so that will hopefully result in more buy-in and greater consistency across the system.

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: What I was just going to mention is that it’s also possible that as it relates to parental caregiver attitudes, that the the loudest voices are the ones that get the attention, you know, like the squeaky wheel gets – it gets to the oil or whatever the phrase is. So Pew Research Center released results of a survey earlier this year, and 74% of US adults supported banning mobile phone use during instruction in middle and high schools. I don’t know if they reported on elementary schools – they might have, I just didn’t see that in the report. So 74% of US adults support a ban on phones during instruction, you know, so taking students’ phones away from them, put them in a pouch or whatever device you want to use to store the phones. 44% supported a bell-to-bell policy and 36% worried that phone regulations wouldn’t go far enough to address the issue. So it’s actually positive. So it seems like there’s quite a few parents and caregivers who are supportive of a ban if it’s done, you know, certainly without the full bell-to-bell ban. So it does seem like there’s a lot of caregivers who are supportive of phone bans. It’s just a matter of – it’s possible that the 26% who aren’t in favor of any ban whatsoever are the ones that have the loudest voices. 

[Matthew Brady]: And just real quick, I don’t – I’m familiar with the Pew survey. I don’t – knowing what I’ve known, what we’ve talked about with others, the parents wanting that constant contact with the kids, I don’t quite believe in the 74% wanting it. It’s just like, were they told that they couldn’t contact,  Malcolm in the middle of the – 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: It’s a good question.

[Matthew Brady]: – second period. You know, if that was made clear to them, I think the numbers might be different. 

[Dr. Abe Flanigan]: Yeah. I mean, no, probably not. I’m sure at the beginning of that question set, they didn’t contextualize “you will be able to contact” or “you won’t”. It was probably just  “do you, in theory, support this policy?”. And in theory, sounds good, it sounds logical right? But I better be able to contact my student when I want to. 

[Dr. Antero Garcia]: I want to thank all four of you. I think this has been a really engaging conversation. I wish we had another nine hours to keep digging into this. I will just recognize kind of like the ways we’ve been talking about this conversation, is like the conversation around banning doesn’t make a recognition of, you know, will the relationship with technology change any time soon? Right?  Like, we’re still in this understanding of, like, cell phones aren’t going away anytime soon – which is kind of a striking place to recognize that, like, we’re still stuck within a particular kind of paradigm in terms of the relationship to our devices. In terms of what’s addicting to us, right, it oftentimes is the thing, the content, it’s the apps themselves that are on these devices. There’s a whole set of questions for us to think about around digital literacy related to this that we’ll get to, hopefully in future webinars. And also just to recognize, I think, another community that kind of didn’t get brought into this conversation today, our students with special needs and the ways that, you know, digital devices might open up – or other kinds of access to content and curriculum. But I want to thank you all, and I’m gonna hand it back to Kris. 

[Kris Perry]: Thank you Antero and the entire panel for this thoughtful and timely discussion on screens in schools. If you want to learn more about the research on this issue, keep a lookout for our next  Research at a Glance on devices in schools to be released at the end of the year. If you found today’s webinar insightful, help us keep the conversation going. Your donation supports future  #AskTheExperts webinars. Just scan the QR code on the screen, or visit children screens.org to give. Thank you.