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This spring, we have an opportunity to improve both the grades and the mental health of a few million kids simply by passing one bill in Washington state — HB 1122.
A decade or so in, devastating and outrageous incidents involving smartphones in schools have occurred all over the world. They have harmed kids in more ways than we know, and proven we must reverse the downward spiral in education and school culture that this technology has brought about.
Put yourself in today’s 11-year-olds’ shoes: Imagine going to school every day knowing you could be filmed without your permission almost any time — including in the bathroom. How would you have reacted to unwillingly seeing X-rated material your classmate stuck in your face during lunch so they could have a laugh at your reaction? Imagine trying to concentrate on your teacher and comprehend algebra with two kids next to you watching YouTube, their smartphones tucked behind a textbook?
Why are we acting like smartphones are some kind of necessary item for kids, along with No. 2 pencils and notebooks?
Now imagine being a teacher. Do you think you could keep 30 people — adults or kids — from disguising and using a smartphone while you explained the parts and functions of a plant cell?
It’s a failure on adults to have let this go as far as it has gone, especially in light of Google and Meta’s history-making successes to keep eyeballs on their products as many hours a day as possible.
The mental health crisis is so severe and so strongly linked to social media that Seattle Public Schools sued Meta in 2023 due to increased workload of teachers who have to cope with students having more emotional difficulties, and the increased costs incurred by having to hire more school counselors.
The current decline in academics and mental health among young people is well documented and coincides awfully well with the proliferation of the smartphone.
Experts can, are, and will probably forever argue over exact causes and effects. Yet while they do, parents, teachers and kids can and have made obvious conclusions based on what is right in front of them. You cannot have a population of emotionally and mentally healthy young people if they are online almost constantly, and have all but ceased to speak to one another in person. We know this both intuitively, rationally and through scientific studies.
As parents, we either sacrifice our ability to grab our child’s attention at every minute of the day, or they sacrifice their education by being distracted and interrupted.
This is why the ban must be bell-to-bell, which means no smartphones during lunch or breaks. For kids without screen time limits at home, lunchtime Monday through Friday could be the only face-to-face socializing they get at all. As adults born in the last century, we take social skills for granted. It’s hard for us to believe kids could grow up without them, yet some kids today struggle with in-person interactions — a.k.a. people skills. These skills are just as critical as computer skills for both their personal and professional lives.
Some may wonder why schools cannot create rules on their own. The answer is that they already have; virtually every school in Greater Seattle already has a no cellphone during class policy. If those worked, we would no longer have our current problem.
HB 1122 will require local schools to identify best practices from other schools and implement them in Washington state. Many schools will need locked pouches or phone lockers (the latter of which is much cheaper) to enforce the law.
The bill mentions locked pouches as a possible solution and while they are reported to work well, I don’t believe either schools or government should have to pay for them. If a student cannot comply with the rules, they should have to buy their own pouch or be barred from bringing a smartphone to school at all (gasp!). Why are we acting like smartphones are some kind of necessary item for kids, along with No. 2 pencils and notebooks?
Students can call home on the multitude of regular phones scattered all over every school building during breaks, with permission, just like all of us did. Parents who need to reach their child can do so through the office as well, and the fact that it may take 10 minutes for your child to get your message is not a hardship which we have a right to protect ourselves from.
Imagine going to school every day knowing you could be filmed without your permission almost any time — including in the bathroom.
As parents, we either sacrifice our ability to grab our child’s attention at every minute of the day, or they sacrifice their education by being distracted and interrupted.
If kids fear locked pouches, they can also switch to a basic phone without internet or apps, which should not have a lockup requirement. If parents truly feel they need a tracker on their child, they can get the Gizmo watch. Kids with specific or special needs would be able to get an exception.
Kids need us. We have been three steps behind while Big Tech has stayed masterfully 10 steps ahead. I am thrilled to see this bill introduced and to see our legislators provide desperately needed leadership. Ban cell phones in schools and recover our educational institutions and support our youth’s mental health now.
Meghan Kaul is the Seattle chapter leader of Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA).
RSVP to attend the next meeting on Feb. 11.
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