Why today's 'anxious generation' needs cellphone bans in school

"One of the key figures who is credited with inspiring this movement is Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. In his book The Anxious Generation,published last year, Haidt makes the case that the rise in social media and cellphone use is a major factor behind what's making kids more anxious and depressed."

""The teachers have hated the phones for 10 or 15 years. How can you teach when your kids are watching TikTok and porn?" he said. Moreover, Haidt pointed out, kids are also worried about the impact social media is having on them. "We've done a lot of surveys of Gen Z. They don't like social media, but they feel trapped," he said. "Fifty percent of Gen Z said they wish social media had never been invented.""

"Haidt's antidote to the damage that social media has wrought is based on four pillars: no smartphones before high school; no social media before age 16; no phones at school; and more independence, free play, and responsibility. However, when it comes to partial bans in schools, Haidt is lukewarm. While he believes they are better than nothing, he likens them to addiction treatments that go nowhere. With partial cellphone bans, he said, it's as though "we'll take a whole bunch of addicts, and we'll say, 'Eight times a day, we're going to take your drug away from you."

Thirty-four states and Washington, D.C., have policies to reduce cellphone use at school, including full and partial bans. A prominent social psychologist and NYU professor links increased social media and smartphone use to higher rates of anxiety and depression among young people, noting a sharp rise in mental health disorders beginning in the early 2010s that coincided with greater teen use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Teachers report classroom disruption from phones, and many teens say they dislike social media yet feel trapped. Proposed remedies include delaying smartphones and social media until later adolescence, banning phones at school, and restoring independent free play and responsibility; partial bans are criticized as ineffective.

Read at Fast Company