Editorial: No phones in schools offer everyone a break
Published 9:32 am Monday, September 8, 2025
When students went back to school earlier this month, they returned to the same desks in the same classrooms in the same buildings. But one thing was different: A modern convenience that is rarely out of sight is no longer welcome.
Phones — and tech that often accompanies them like earbuds, smart watches and smart glasses — are now banned “from bell to bell” in the Redmond School District. And soon many of the same rules will be instituted at schools across the state. Phones and electronic devices like them (earbuds, smartglasses, etc.) will be required to be stored away to ensure students are not distracted when they should be learning.
It’ll take some getting used to, but we think the benefits of the ban outweigh the negatives.
First, consider it from a teacher’s point of view. You’re trying to impart some complicated concept, but your student’s eyes and minds are elsewhere. Every parent knows that feeling: Trying to talk to your teen but barely being able to budge them from their screen. Parents can make rules at home for how kids must listen attentively. And they can make rules that limit screen time. So it makes sense that schools can use those same tools, too, in order to break through the technological barriers that hoard student attention.
Second, consider the student’s perspective. A report released earlier this year notes that teens spend an average of 7 hours and 22 minutes a day looking at screens. More than four hours of that is spent on social media such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram — all of which are tied to lowering self esteem and having negative effects on teen mental health. Think also of the ways that basic phone tools like texting and taking photos can have disruptive effects on learning. Finding ways to break away from that unhealthy dependence on their phone — which for many borders on addiction — would be good thing. The phone — and internet in your pocket — is a modern convenience. But its often a detriment to enjoying life and learning about the world around us. We imagine that some high school students cannot imagine that is so — they’ve known no other world except that of a completely connected teenager.
Finally, consider from the parent’s perspective. It seems like most complaints the local school board and even the governor’s office received on the new rules came from parents who argued that they need their children to have their phones on them at all time. Parents, too, are not immune to unhealthy reliance on modern devices. Sure, it might seem nice to be able to see your child’s whereabouts at all time, but its not necessary. No previous generations had that power and all made through the intense angst of sending your children out of your protected home and into that bright, blue world of excitement and obstacles. Students may still have phones on them for emergencies, since God knows America’s schools have more than their share of emergencies. Those phones will just have to be zipped away, stuffed into the bottom of a backpack, not in pockets or hands all day long.
Over-reliance on constant connectivity is not just a school problem. We’re certainly not holier-than-thou when it comes to spending too much time on devices. Perhaps no one is immune glancing down briefly to watch some video, then looking up to see a whole evening has gone by. And we’ve also felt the phantom rings, and the tics of touching pockets to make sure you’ve got the good stuff nearby should you need to stare at something for a few seconds. All are the same brief shots of dopamine and withdrawal that users have with all sorts of less-than-legal drugs.
Phones have become insidious in all aspects of daily life. Finding ways to take a break — even mandating those breaks for minors — will be hard at first. But it will good for the long haul. It will means young brains will spend more time thinking.
