From burner phones to decks of cards: NYC teens adjusting to the smartphone ban

Texas banned phones in schools as well. A local school administrator told me “in the high school, the lunch room is now loud with talking and laughter!”

There are still parents that complain. Turns out they are as addicted to texting with their kids all day as their kids are addicted to the same.

Regardless, it’s great to see that the ban has seemingly nudged things in a healthier direction. Its a failure of leadership that schools needed a statewide ban to make such an obviously positive change.

Phones might be as much a symptom as a cause

The related issue is parents are overly protective of teens and don't give them enough independence. You see this in a lot of different ways from parents wanting to text their kids, to only letting kids do highly managed structured activities, to treating teens as their best friends, to helicopter parenting protecting kids from all adversity, etc etc

And a similar thing happens not just with parents, but society, there are not a lot of places teens can just hang out. A lot of fun things teens would do increasingly ban minors.

If you want teens off devices, you need to give them alternatives

In my household no one has cell phones, so we set expectations of checking in once a day via chat over wifi from laptops, radio, meshtastic, or picking up a public phone... and otherwise learn to be resourceful, self confident, and independent.

I am convinced these skills will benefit a kid more than being good at doom scrolling.