Zach Mangino, a rising senior at Wilton High School in Connecticut, spent most of the last school year undistracted by text alerts and TikTok videos, thanks to the town’s Board of Education decision to ban high school students from accessing their smartphones from “bell to bell.”
While plenty of his classmates weren’t thrilled with the district’s $80,000 investment in lockable device pouches made by Yondr, a US company, Mangino wasn’t one of them.
“Before the ban, you’d see people standing against the walls like zombies. They’d be a foot away from each other and wouldn’t say a word,” Zach, 17, told The Post. “It made such a big difference walking around school and seeing kids smiling and having genuine conversations instead of looking down at their phones or scrolling Instagram.”
While Connecticut has no statewide mandate to ban smartphones, tablets and smartwatches at every public school, New York now does, with legislation announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May, which calls for all “personal internet-enabled electronic devices” to be turned off and stowed away for the duration of the school day.
The impetus for the legislation is “More Learning, Less Scrolling: Creating Distraction-Free Schools,” a report based on Hochul’s statewide listening tour, which highlights one stark fact: American teenagers get pinged with an average of 250 notifications daily, which adversely affects attention spans and learning outcomes.
And with the first morning bell ringing very soon — NYC public schools open Sept. 4 — officials statewide are busy figuring out how to implement the ban since the way these devices are stored is up to each principal.
While the law doesn’t stipulate how to do this — phones can be placed in lockers, cubbies or lockable pouches, such as the ones from Yondr — the deadline for the specific plan is Friday, Aug. 8, and the $25 million needed for this (or $35 per student for lockable pouches) hasn’t been distributed to schools, according to Chalkbeat.
Danielle Lewis, whose daughter Logan, 15, attends a no-phones-allowed city charter school — one-third of New York City’s public secondary schools are already unplugged, according to Yondr — appreciates the policy, but says it took some getting used to.
“I would like to have the ability to reach my daughter during the school day,” Lewis, who lives in Harlem and works in nonprofit communications, told The Post. “At the same time, I understand that phones are distractions, period. It’s tricky to get kids to stop looking at TikTok under their desks.
“I understand the reasons why phones shouldn’t be in schools, but it’s still nuanced.”
Legislation banning device use in schools isn’t a widespread phenomenon across the country — yet. While only 14 states have active laws or executive orders on the books banning cellphone use in school, support for phone bans is on the rise, according to a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center.
“As parents, we want our kids to pay attention in the classroom, but we also want them to socialize, lift their heads up and look each other in the eye,” Sue Mangino, Zach’s mom, who works for Synchrony Bank, told The Post. “With phones, it’s harder for kids to do that, so we’re big fans of the ban.”
For Lewis, who once taught kindergarten and third grade, a device-free classroom assuredly helps teachers keep order and enables kids to focus better during lessons.
“I can definitely get behind the goal of making sure the kids are getting everything they can from their instructors and that the barriers to learning are being removed,” she said.
Classrooms have a clear incentive for removing those “barriers,” experts said.
“We’re not banning cell phones. We’re trying to give kids their attention spans back,” Josh Altman, an NYC licensed therapist who has worked with teenagers and others, told The Post of removing distracting tech, which “levels the playing field.”
“Schools have become rampant with overuse, but everywhere has, so we’re trying to bring focus back into classrooms where students can be more present, off their devices and improve face-to-face conversations,” he continued, adding that “keeping phones out of school also reduces cyber-bullying.”
To date, 2.5 million US students have started the process by using a Yondr pouch — a lockable sleeve used to secure devices for shows and concerts at various venues, including Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center in Brooklyn and some Broadway theaters — from the moment they arrive at school to the minute they’re dismissed, according to the company.
“Our goal is to help create an environment for students that’s free from distractions — at least for the six to eight hours a day they’re in school,” Graham Dugoni, Yondr’s CEO, who developed the product 11 years ago, told The Post.
In addition, in any city, town or state with a phone ban, it’s critical for school leaders to provide a dedicated phone line for families to contact their students in case of emergency and to communicate clear protocols should a security incident occur on campus, Dugoni said.
“Parents worry about being able to reach their children if an emergency happens, but every teacher and administrator has access to a phone,” he added.
Ultimately, Dugoni hopes a phone-free environment offers students a feeling of freedom.
“When there aren’t phones present, we’ve seen a huge increase in academic performance and fewer disciplinary situations,” he contended. “Kids are less worried about being recorded during an embarrassing moment, they’re not distracted by social media, they’re talking to each other more, and they’re springing back into life.
“This is how powerful a phone-free environment can be.”
