When Steph—a mother of three in Philadelphia—visited a new private school with her eldest son, she noticed crosshatched calculator holders hanging on the classroom doors filled—but not with dedicated number crunchers. They were for smartphones. Now, a few months into the new school year, these high school students know the deal: There will be no phones in class. 

Nor are they alone. Schools, legislators, and mental health scholars across the U.S. are enthralled in the debate over what to do about this generation’s fascination with social media and smartphones. Last spring, Penn alum Jonathan Haidt (MA ‘88, PhD ‘92) published his book The Anxious Generation, an earnest portrayal of the adolescent mental health crisis, brought about in his view by social media’s rewiring of childhood. It sent legislative shockwaves. New York City Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District—two of the largest in the nation—both moved in June 2024 to ban phones during the entire school day. 

Pennsylvania is trying to follow suit. Introduced by State Senator Ryan Aument, a Pennsylvania bill passed this summer offers schools access to a $100 million fund to purchase lockable Yondr pouches if they make the same commitment. The pouches have a magnetic device that seals their contents, only to be released collectively at the end of the school day. The best way to start tackling the issue of phones, policy wonks seem to agree, is to get them out of schools entirely.  

But there is a hitch in the state’s plans—schools are not taking the deal. At the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a magnet high school in central Philadelphia, students are allowed their phones in between classes and at lunch. At Garnet Valley School District, a dedicated committee is brainstorming ways of teaching kids how to live in an online world instead of trying to cut them off from it. 

“We can't ignore our responsibility to give all our students the tools that they need to be successful in this environment,” Dr. Marc Bertrando, superintendent at Garnet Valley, says. “And it's a heck of a lot harder to do that than it is to just ban the things.” 

Philly–area schools are breaking away and designing their own approaches to tackling the issue of smartphones in the classroom. In leveraging the experience of teachers and students, they are resisting the top–down imposition of a state–wide crackdown. The impacts of smartphones are an area in public health where individuals are no longer deferring to the experts. It’s a bottom–up approach to the adolescent mental health crisis, and one that raises an important question: What happens when public health becomes a grassroots initiative? 



Bans on devices in classrooms have a long and storied history. In many schools across the country, the first period of crackdowns took place in the '80s. There were concerns over pagers being used to push illegal drugs at a time of increased abuse among teenagers. Schools were also early worriers about devices being a distraction during class. By most accounts, these bans seemed like a no–brainer. 

However, this sentiment quickly evaporated following the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. As the first major tragedy of its kind on the national radar, parents immediately wanted access to their children during every minute of the school day. Indeed, the issue of school safety remains a lightning rod from which phone bans still derive much of their divisiveness. 

“The primary concern from parents is there is not an understood safety just because you're in the school building anymore, and if something were to happen, I need to be able to get in touch with my child,” says Deborah Knox, who teaches English at Garnet Valley and is on the committee addressing smartphones. “That's a visceral parental need, so it's hard to argue against it.” 

In what is a radically new digital age, the issue that phones pose in schools is fundamentally different, because the nature of the tech is fundamentally different. “The big, huge change,” Knox says, “happened when the phones became like little computers.” Smartphones today are like portals in the pockets of teenagers—they can take you (virtually) anywhere you want to go. TikTok and Instagram reels include a firehose of rapid–fire content delivered by an algorithm designed to engage. Here is a world that is addicting and exciting, and difficult to compete with if you’re a parent, a teacher, or even a friend. 

It seems fair to say, nearly 18 years following the first iPhone’s release, that smartphones have since cemented themselves as an easy, frequent distraction—an addiction, even. In her classroom, what Knox sees tells a story. “My students, they don't even notice when they pick their phone up. They don't even realize they're doing it, checking it multiple times,” she says. The brains of children—and adults, don’t forget—are being worn smooth by mesmerizing algorithms. 

But some schools are resolute in the view that all–out bans, as proposed by the likes of Haidt and Sen. Aument, are not the solution. Instead, the focus is on developing constructive approaches that work with and empower students to become digitally disciplined individuals. “Personally as an educator,” Knox says, “if I don't help students to manage their use of their phone, who will?” 

She does not ask students to hang up their phones at the start of class. Instead, if students feel they need to use their phone at some point during Knox’s class they can, but they need to get up and go out into the hallway to do so. It’s a practice in mindfulness—putting in a barrier that gives pause to students before absently taking out their phones. 

For Knox, the requirement mustn’t be a form of punishment. “I'm not making a decision about whether or not their use of the phone is necessary, I’m not making that judgment.” Her students are invited to judge for themselves whether checking their socials right now is worth completely stopping what they’re doing. It’s through that self–reflection, Knox hopes, that these kids will develop a responsible relationship with their smartphone use and screen time. There’s a mantra she repeats in the classroom: “You control your technology. Don't let it control you.” 

Steph originally had restrictions on her eldest son’s phone that let her control screen time, as well as block certain apps like social media. But she recalls how these rules in the home came to change. “Just last week he said, ‘I think you should let me manage it,’ And I said, ‘You know what? You're right.’ He's almost 15, and how is he going to learn if we're in control of it?” Steph says. “It feels good to be able to give him that freedom.” 

Tapping into a teenager's sense of independence (and even rebelliousness) when spurring them to re–evaluate their relationship with addictive apps may even seem obvious, at least to those who have spent considerable time around the age group. “I think giving our young people the expertise to know that they're being manipulated is the most powerful thing that we can do,” says Bertrando. “Because you let a teenager know that somebody's trying to manipulate them, it is their nature to say, ‘Oh yeah, well, screw you. I know what you're trying to do, and I'm not falling for that.’” 

Granted, there’s a concern that adolescents have yet to develop the executive function necessary to self–regulate their smartphone use. Activists like Haidt are extremely vocal on this point, gesturing to the underdeveloped frontal cortices of young people. Even if kids can recognize an urge to check Instagram as unhealthy, the pull of a social media notification is strong. Indeed, Bertrando notes how some students ask for their phones to be taken away during class. If kids are finding their phones are distracting them in class, and likely affecting their learning, is there a responsibility to step in and take them away? 

When discussing the issue with Cara, another parent of two in Philadelphia, her 14–year–old son Adam interjects, and is happy to offer his take: “I feel like the school should let us have our phones, and I feel like it doesn't really matter that you’re on it or not, because if you get bad grades because you're on your phone, it's kind of your fault.” 

But it’s also true that things are not as straightforward as distracting phones leading to bad grades. If students are on their phones because they're bored, then it’s not the phones that are the problem. Students at Garnet Valley raise this point to their superintendent. “They say to me, ‘Well, we don't have a cell phone issue if I'm really engaged in what I'm learning,’” Bertrando says. “So, the educator in me goes, ‘Okay, we really need to start personalizing education for students.’” What’s important is keeping kids engaged, not lamenting what they find more interesting. 



Yet educational attainment is only one side of the smartphone coin—the other is the mental well–being of students. There is a rising mental health crisis among adolescents, and it’s a wave that began to swell right at the introduction of smartphones. 

The years between 2010 and 2015 saw a dramatic bend in the curve of young people experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression across the U.S. According to the American College Health Association, rates of depression and anxiety among college students have increased by 106% and 134% respectively since 2010. In less than 15 years, the prevalence of mental illness among young people has more than doubled. 

The numbers are startling, angering, and give cause to any member of Gen Z to scream against the Thanksgiving uncle who says kids have it easy these days. But once they are digested, the question that needs to be asked is “Why?” For many, the rise of smartphones and social media is the prime suspect. 

The etiology of anxiety is interesting given its potential relation to the hyper–viralized world we inherit. For the anxious state is one of nervous alertness in response to a perceived but often under–defined threat. Such a threat can be physical but, perhaps more often than not, it’s societal in some way: the threat of failing a class, of not getting any internship, the threat of losing social standing. 

This last danger is especially pronounced in teenagers, for whom peer acceptance is the oxygen of adolescence, and social media has made it seem scarce. Once online spaces were transformed in 2009 by the ‘like’ and ‘retweet’ buttons, what were once networking systems became platforming systems. How popular are you? Well, check the numbers. Front–facing cameras in 2010 and the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook in 2012, which skyrocketed its popularity, completed this transformation. Social media by then was flooded with kids posting carefully curated photos of themselves online for others to judge, bemoan, and feel jealous of. 

What’s more, the social terrain itself became more treacherous for adolescents once it moved online in the form of cyberbullying. “Before smartphones were in the classroom,” Knox says, “if a student were in some way being negatively impacted by another student in the room, I could see what was happening and I could address it.” Today, the situation is different. “A student in, you know, the third row halfway down the classroom is peeking at their phone real quick and then putting it away, and they've had something traumatic just happen to them. But I don't know it.” 

No school community has come up with a perfect solution to cyberbullying. But it seems naïve to suggest that locking phones in magnetic Yondr pouches is going to make the problem go away. Chris Lehmann, the founding principal at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), believes they see fewer instances of cyberbullying because they take a constructive approach to smartphones in school. “We’re very intentional about saying, ‘we understand you're going to use these [social media platforms]. What does it mean to use them wisely and well?’” Imploring kids to be mature and responsible online becomes more difficult when, in the same breath, you tell them they can’t be trusted on their phones during the school day. 

When considering the psychosocial impacts of smartphones, it’s important to consider what kids are not doing when online—what Haidt calls the opportunity cost. Cries for bans during the entire school day are driven in part by the threat phones pose to the fringe interactions that were once cherished. The five–minute chat before class starts, or, as Steph recalls with a chuckle, “that cute kid across the hall that you pass between third and fourth period every day.” 

There’s a hitch with the social–displacement thesis though. It lacks evidence. A direct and causal link between smartphone use and poor mental health outcomes has been difficult to prove. Sure, there is a body of research finding a correlation between smartphone use and poorer mental health. Yet, when these studies find an effect, if indeed they do, the size tends to be small. In a famous example, one study found the impact of smartphone use on harmful psychological outcomes to be equivalent to eating starchy potatoes. 

Another difficulty is the direction of causality. It’s often unclear whether smartphone use is bringing about anxiety or depression, or whether those already experiencing this inner turmoil retreat to a faux–social world which exacerbates their existing feelings of isolation. 

One oft–cited study by Penn researcher Dr. Melissa Hunt has emboldened some scholars. Between two groups of college students—one who used social media as usual, the other limited to 10 minutes a day—the former reported greater rates of anxiety and depression at the end of the study. But again, the results were most pronounced among students who were already depressed. Heavy use of social media most likely exacerbates some of the drivers of anxiety and depression, but whether it is the root cause is highly unclear. 

Dr. Lily Brown, the Director of Penn’s Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, says, “My sense of the research is that we don't know with confidence yet what the impact is.” As it stands, calls for an all–out ban on phones in school seem more heavy–handed than the evidence can support. 



What is intriguing about the current saga in schools, however, is that teachers and administrators don’t feel tied down while experts put together a conclusive answer. Most are aware of the evidence, and intrigued by it—even swayed by it—but they are not beholden to it. “I do take the research and the expertise very, very seriously,” Bertrando says, “but just as seriously I take the perspective of our educators who are in classrooms every single day of their lives.” What to do about kids and their smartphones is not something to defer exclusively to science. 

By leveraging the expertise and experience of people in their communities, these schools are hoping to tackle the issue of smartphones with a level of tact and nuance that white–paper reports tend to overlook. Conversations include teachers, who can balance a classroom where students are independent without being chaotic, and parents, who know the individual needs of their kids better than anyone else. 

Except, perhaps, the kids themselves. “I don't always believe it's appropriate to have student voice in making decisions in schools,” says Lehmann. “But there are times that student voice is very valuable, and I think this is the most valuable I've seen in the 30 years I've been doing my job. They have a level of expertise and an experience that no adult has.” Conversations with students promise to be crucial in developing a constructive approach that empowers kids to become digitally disciplined individuals. By resorting to all–out bans, schools risk being absent from these conversations. 

For these schools, their constructive approach doesn’t mean ignoring cries of concern over smartphones. But it does mean leaning back slightly from the one–size–fits–all solutions that scholars like Haidt feel ready to assert. And by extension, it means resisting the state’s top–down approach—magnetic pouches and all—that tends to overlook the intricacies of a given issue. “Nuance is important here and state policy, state law, tends to be a sledgehammer, not a scalpel,” says Lehmann. 

So here are Philly–area schools, standing against the imposition of a state–wide crackdown on smartphones. But what legacy can grassroots approaches like these really have in public health? These parents and teachers aren’t the crunchy–conservative types, skeptical of all science and deep–state institutions. Reasonable people can disagree on how comfortable they are with kids having freedom to use phones in school. But on some public health issues, like vaccines, for example, we must surely insist experts take the lead. Promoting more bottom–up activism in some areas of healthcare may seem downright dangerous. 

This conclusion can be resisted somewhat—public health in general could benefit from being more community–engaged. As Dr. Brown suggests, we can’t resort to belittling people who hold different perspectives even if we deem them unreasonable. “We want to hear the perspectives of the skeptics, so we can learn from them and design the next iteration of our projects with that feedback in mind,” she says. It’s perhaps inevitable that, so long as research at places like Penn operates distinctly from the folk, mistrust and paranoia will continue to fester. 

It’s partly about trust, and by extension the uptake of health interventions we deem beneficial, be that jabs or healthier diet options. The health of societies ultimately depends on individual behaviors—most are unwilling to change unless they are involved in the process. 

But it is also about designing more effective interventions. As the story of smartphones shows, there’s a valuable role of anecdotal experience in introducing nuance when crafting public policy. The utility of such anecdotes spreads beyond personal issues like how we should raise our kids. We can, and should, demand that more research and policy be integrated with the lived experiences of people on the ground. 

At least that would be the takeaway lesson if the U.S. was in the midst of politics as usual. But it is not. President–elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and he has picked Dr. Dave Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both, although primarily the former, have expressed unorthodox scientific views ranging from the benign but bizarre to the seemingly perilous. Calling for scientific evidence to be integrated with anecdotal experiences is one thing, how to proceed when the other side is not actually interested in science is less clear. 

At the SLA high school, one of the very first classes all ninth graders take is an introduction to technology and digital infusion. It teaches students tools to help navigate the social media landscape through which many get their news and political opinion, and to think critically about how it impacts their own self–image, politics, values. As Lehmann puts it: “If we are not teaching kids to be critical consumers of the information they receive—and we know the phone is one of the primary ways in which they receive information—then we're doing our kids a disservice, period.” 

Perhaps an emerging generation of kids who are actively educated in schools to be digitally disciplined—media literate and judicious in what they accept from the information fired at them online—is exactly what the U.S. needs in this moment of public health crisis. 

More Like This