Science Friday - What Research Shows About Smartphone Bans In Schools

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Kids and teens are back in school, and the battle over the smartphones in their pockets is becoming more prominent. For years, teachers and parents have lamented about the distractions these devices cause in and out of the classroom. Last year, the US surgeon general declared a youth mental health crisis, citing social media as a significant factor, and more than 40 US states are suing Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, arguing that the company intentionally manipulated their apps to addict teens and kids.A 2021 survey showed that 76% of US public schools prohibit cellphones. Seven states have implemented bans, and 14 more recently introduced similar legislation.To parents and educators, it might seem that phones and social media are bad for kids and bad for learning. But research shows that the reality is more complicated, with some suggesting that a blanket smartphone ban isn’t necessarily the solution.So what are the best ways to approach school phone bans? What do we know about the psychological effects of smartphones on kids and teens? And why does this research tend to defy simple answers?To answer these questions, guest host and SciFri producer Kathleen Davis is joined by Dr. Emily Weinstein, co-director of the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard University, and the author of Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (And Adults Are Missing), and Sandy Roberts, education program manager at Science Friday and former middle school teacher.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Kids and teens are back in school, and the battle over the smartphones in their pockets is becoming more and more prominent. You may have those that assume this is clear. We take phones out of the classroom and test scores are going to go up and kids are going to be happier and it's all going to be solved. But that isn't necessarily the case. It's Monday, September 16th, and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm SciFri producer Dee Petersmith. For years, teachers and parents have lamented about the distractions smartphones cause in and out of the classroom. Last year, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a youth mental health crisis, citing social media as a significant factor.

And more than 40 U.S. states are suing meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, arguing that the company intentionally manipulated their apps to addict teens and kids. A 2021 survey showed that about three quarters of U.S. public schools prohibits cell phones. Seven states have implemented bans and 14 more recently introduced similar legislation. To parents and educators, it might seem that phones and social media, are bad for kids and bad for learning. But research shows that the reality is a little more complicated. Here's Science Friday guest host Kathleen Davis with more. So what are the best ways to approach school phone bands?

What do we know about the psychological effects of smartphones on kids and teens? And why does this research tend to defy straightforward takeaways? We have two guests here to help us parse these difficult questions. Dr. Emily Weinstein is the co-director of the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard, and is the author of Behind Their Screens, What Teens Are Facing and Adults Are Missing. She studies the effects that smartphones have on kids. And we have our very own Sandy Roberts, Education Program Manager at Science Friday and former middle school teacher. Welcome both of you to Science Friday.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. And as a heads up for our listeners, this conversation will feature discussion around suicidal ideation. So, Emily, it might seem obvious that social media. media and smartphones are having a negative effect on teens. But can you talk about why it's not as straightforward as that from a research perspective? Well, when we're thinking about research on social media and smartphones, their impacts on kids, there are a range of different challenges. We're not just talking about one thing when we're talking about screen time or social media.

So we have topics like body image, attention, getting into risky situations online, cyberbullying. And you can imagine each of these topics is actually an area with a whole body of research and different insights. So when it comes to mental health, that's been a really big topic. We have a lot of conversation, for example, about rising reports of anxiety and hopelessness among teens. And researchers are actually quite divided about whether social media and smartphones are a cause, the cause, or a symptom of a problem that actually has different roots. We know that the effects are different for different kids. I think some adults assume this. The way these effects work is almost like a dose response relationship. Like you have the person who has two hours of screen time is worse off than a person who has one hour of screen time. And there are a lot of reasons why I think the data tell us a more complicated story. One reason is we've all probably had an experience where we've spent an hour on our phone and felt really crummy after. Right. And also had an experience where we spent that exact. same number of minutes on our device, but we had a completely different reaction after. So two people could actually look at the exact same picture, and one goes down a sort of

comparison spiral, and the other just doesn't. And then there are all of these other contextual differences and individual differences among kids that really are responsible for creating very different kinds of experiences on their phone. So very different kinds of screen time experiences and very different impacts of that screen time. I'd love to tell you about one study that I got to work on that's been really on my mind. So I've spent a lot of time listening to teen stories about social media and had an opportunity to interview teens a few years ago who were in psychiatric inpatient care at a children's hospital. So this was a population of teens who had struggled with suicidal ideation and behaviors. And we were interviewing them

to try and understand their social media leading up to hospitalization. Was anything positive? was anything distressing or dysregulating. And even in this population, there was a lot of variation. We learned that there were ways social media could be, for some kids, a component of their positive coping or access to recovery communities. And also there were teens for whom there were major challenges related to really concerning content or cyberbullying. But even among this at-risk, very at-risk population, their experiences weren't monolithic. And Sandy, as a former teacher, can you speak to the dilemmas that teachers face in classrooms around smartphone use, especially since 2020? Yeah. Well, teachers generally feel like there are a lot of distractions that come

with having cell phones and other digital devices in the classroom. And then there's also the concern that there are so many different ways to deal with cell phones in the classroom, from individual teachers setting policy to schools to states. It can feel really patchwork. It can feel really confusing. And so it puts teachers in a really difficult spot, right? You may have those that assume this is clear. We take phones out of the classroom and test scores are going to go up and kids are going to be happier and it's all going to be solved. But that isn't necessarily the case. You're also in a situation where teachers are kind of in the place between a parent and a student sometimes. And that can be a really challenging place to be. You don't want to overstep any bounds,

but at the same time, you need to enforce rules that may be in place at the school level. And it gets even trickier. You know, I've had kids addicted to games and playing in class. I've had kids caught cyberbullying other students. I've had teenage girls who had photos shared that they didn't want shared. So it's a real challenge. And then there's also the parent angle here where parents are concerned. They want their kids to have phones for safety reasons and to be able to get in touch.

And a lot of educators are just expressing that they're not sure what to do. And so bands can be really attractive because it just makes things very simple. So, Emily, you've talked to hundreds and surveyed thousands of kids over the years about the effects that these devices actually have on their lives. So what is something that you've heard from them that they wish that the adults in their lives understood? I think one thing that we hear from teens is that adults are quick to blame everything on their phones. And sometimes that can actually displace really important conversations about things that are hard for them. And at the same time, we have teens telling us that there are things that can be really complicated about navigating life with their phones. So let's talk about these school phone bans.

So, Emily, for schools that have implemented them, what does the research say about their effectiveness? Okay, well, this is really interesting. So we have an imperfect research base and we have some mixed findings. So I'll give you one example. There's a 2015 study from the UK. They looked at data from 91 schools in four different cities and they compared gains in student test scores within and across schools before and after phone bans were introduced. And they found an improvement in student test scores. And interestingly, their data suggests that those gains were driven by students who they characterize as the most underachieving. So students who are in the lowest quartile of achievement before the ban.

So you could look at these data and wonder whether students will be differentially impacted by phone bans. And it's also the case that there are other studies that just haven't replicated these findings and aren't finding the same kinds of impacts. And maybe that has to do with the actual policy. Maybe it has to do with something about its implementation or something else about the school community. we don't really know. So we have some reasons to think that these bands will make a big difference, maybe more so for some students than others. And Sandy, you reached out to teachers in your network about their experience with phones in the classroom and the effectiveness of bands if their school has

one. So what did you hear from these teachers? We had one great response from a teacher, Joanna in Honolulu, that kind of sums up the experience. And if you don't mind, I'd love to share that with you. So Joanna writes, at our school, this is the second year we have required middle school students to place their phones in lockers directly after arrival at school. I thought that this policy would not work, but it is delightful for teachers and maybe students. And there was not much pushback. Kids just did what we asked. We have games in our team space and classrooms, and it's a joy to see them playing Jenga or Uno in the morning or at lunch rather than hunched over a phone. I also feel like kids get along better in our

more tolerant of others. It's not perfect. I do catch kids occasionally using phones on the way to PE, but generally I'm happy with this policy. So that seems to kind of sum it up. It's one of those things where it's not easy, it's not perfect, but it does seem to make a better experience for the kids. A cell phone ban seems pretty straightforward until we consider the reality of U.S. school life, where school shootings, like the one that we saw in Georgia last week, happen. Sandy, as a parent, I know you unfortunately have some experience related to this. So can you tell us about how that shifted your outlook on phone bans? Yeah. So my youngest daughter started high school in the midst of the pandemic during school lockdowns. So when she was finally able to go back to school and have an official first day of high school, she was very excited to get to see people in real life.

And that was when we gave her an actual smartphone with like a data plan and everything. So that was doubly exciting. And we felt that was really important because we're in a rural area. She was going to an academy that was quite far away from our home and wasn't easy for us to get to. And we didn't really know anyone in the area. But off she went to school. And I was so excited until I got the text, no parent ever wants to get. And Gwen texted me, mom, we're on lockdown. They say there's a bomb in the school.

My daughter's school was evacuated. And, you know, she was texting me that there are SWAT teams here. There are people on the roof. And it was probably one of the most, like, terrifying, confusing, chaotic experiences we'd ever had. And I am so thankful that she had that cell phone just keep me updated because otherwise I wouldn't have known where to even pick her up from. I wasn't familiar. with those schools. And having that communication device on that stressful day was beyond valuable. And it's funny because as a middle school teacher, like I said, I experienced kids that were distracted in class because of these devices. I have been frustrated by kids paying attention to Fortnite instead of my science lesson. But that day really put it in perspective for me. And I understood in a very visceral way how important. important it is to have that contact to your child in that situation. Now, I know that some may say it's not helpful for every kid to be texting their parents, but in the environment we live right now,

a cell phone just feels really vital to me. Emily, you've written about how phone bans can be effective, but they aren't the blanket solution to this larger crisis around teen mental health. what else do you think needs to happen here in terms of educating teens about digital or social media literacy? Thank you so much for that question, which feels like it's been missing from a lot of these policy conversations. I mean, I think a big question is, what are we hoping for in terms of our young people's relationships with tech? What else is needed so that they have essential media literacy skills? So they have a chance to learn and think about how they text or what they choose to record. So they have practice navigating digital missteps.

Like, what do you do when you made a mistake? I also feel like personally, I want every student to understand the business model of the attention economy and really think about the different biases and algorithms and their disproportionate impacts on different groups. And I know that these questions feel daunting. And in some ways, I think the idea of phone bans feels like an easier step for some people. But no phone policy alone is going to get our students all the. that they need to be able to thrive and navigate a tech-filled world. And I really hope that we won't overlook the importance of these topics. I also think that there has been sort of this false dichotomy setup where there is this argument right now that where people seem to pin this

idea of having this type of media literacy or digital citizenship on whether or not phones are in the classroom. And I really think these are separate issues. We don't need the technology right in front of us to have them. Some of them, we will need technology and we'll have intentional access to it. But that feels like, this feels like a really important piece of the conversation. And Sandy, what are your thoughts on this? You know, I've been around kids and teaching for a long time now. And when I think of things like using cell phones in class and I think of AI and all of these technological advances, I don't feel like telling kids just to ignore it or not use it is going to be, obviously, it's not going to be an effective strategy. They're going to be

curious. They're going to want to learn to use it. That's such a wonderful opportunity for engagement and to have real conversations with kids and teach some skills that will really help them going forward as human beings on this planet. So I do think it's important to have the conversations with kids because sometimes it just feels like a band-aid, just saying we're not going to have the cell phone in the classroom. We're just going to pretend like that doesn't exist. that doesn't work. It doesn't work with my kids. It doesn't work with my students. It doesn't work with me. So what does a more productive version of the classroom look like, in your opinion? Maybe Sandy, we can start with you. I think first is just addressing the problem. I've always had a really good experience with kids, telling them what my expectations are, what my reasoning is for that, and then setting any kind of boundaries that are necessary.

And there's always going to be those kids that are going to try and get around those restrictions. We know that they're bringing in dummy phones for the envelopes and for the lockers and things like that. That's just a reality. But I think that if we really talk to kids about why we're asking them to do this and make that real for them, then we can have conversations that are going to help them make better choices over the course of their whole lives and not just in the classroom. And Emily, what do you think? Adults and educators, too, as part of that community often feel like they get stuck in being like referees when it comes to technology, where our whole role is to just blow the whistle when kids do something wrong. And students really need us to embrace more of a coaching role. And we could really make a difference if we paused long enough to ask questions rather than just making assumptions.

I just want to jump in there and say, I think that this is such an important discussion. Emily, because there are positive aspects of the parissocial relationships and information seeking that you have online. And I have people in my life that have benefited from that. I have trans kids I've worked with kids in rural areas that maybe are LGBTQ that have found those relationships online. So it can be a really positive thing. But it's really about discussing it with the kids. And, you know, I've experienced this with my own children, just giving them almost the permission to say that's a boundary for me. That's not something I want to do or this is a way I engage. And just making that a more active participation, I think it could be really powerful.

Well, thank you both so much for taking the time to talk with us about this. Dr. Emily Weinstein, co-director of the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard and Sandy Roberts, Education Program Manager at Science Friday. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kassam. And that's all the time we have for today. Lots of people help make the show happen, including...

Beth Rami. Santiago Flores. Diana Plasker. Robin Kasmar. On tomorrow's episode, a marine biologist and climate policy expert lays out a pragmatic vision of climate change solutions in a new book. I'm Cyfry producer D. Petersmith.

See you then.