Dear Editor,

As a hometown resident and lifetime reader of The Times Leader, as well as a professional educator of over thirty years, I write to the Times Leader Editor to share my thoughts on the detriment of student cell phone use in our public educational system.

I write to inform of the very pressing and growing concern facing our schoolteachers and administrators today regarding the use of cellular telephones in our public schools. Nearly all students are coming to school with cell phones which are causing great distractions to our educational environment. Cell phone use by students in classrooms are causing a lack of academic focus, a move away from common interpersonal respect when paying attention to one who is speaking, fueling social and emotional problems for teens watching inappropriate content on the phones, and providing a growing platform for unsafe communication and crimes of threats and contraband in our schools.

As an educator, it is impossible to teach a class of thirty-five students while also attempting to police their cell phone use in class. Additionally, trying to encourage students to put the phones away during instructional time is a losing battle for teachers who are dealing with cellphone-addicted students. As parents who are providing and paying for these cell phones, we must be mindful of the great extent and time that our impressionable youth and our students are utilizing the cell phones in lieu of getting an education. The cell phones have become the greatest teachers of our youth, not parents, not teachers. Instead, our youth have fallen as addicted prey to mass media. What are parents, teachers, and school administrators to do?

According to medical doctors Tandon, Zhou, Hogan, and Christakis (2020), student cell phone use starting at younger ages is negatively associated with children’s academic and social-emotional outcomes. In this research study, “over 90% of principals supported restrictions on cell phone use for students of middle and high school age, and more than 80% of principals believed that cell phone use during school has negative consequences for social development and academics,” (Tandon et al, 2020). Setting limits on screen time has been beneficial to students and considering that students spend a third of their waking hours in schools; setting limits on screen time while students are attending school would be a positive step in linking student exposure to their cell phones.

However, it is increasingly difficult for schools to find the right balance between utilizing modern technology and embracing the positive enhancements that cell phones bring versus the negatives that students face when using cell phones such as cheating, cyberbullying, sexting, and distractions from academic performances. Cyberbullying has severe negative and tragic effects on students, and inappropriate cell phone use while in school contributes to this social and emotional detriment (Smale et al, 2021).

According to Prothero (2024), states are cracking down on cellphones in schools. States are passing laws restricting cell phones. In the state of Florida, cell phones usage during instructional time was prohibited by law on July 1, 2023 (Florida House of Representatives, 2023).

Yet, students continue to fight to bring cell phones into classrooms, leading teachers to face a losing battle against constant sources of distractions in our schools. Students are receiving hundreds of notifications a day during school hours, causing a constant distraction to the learning process and harming students mental health and well-being, argue teachers. Many teachers state that the students’ relationships with their cell phones are described as addictive. Educators are seeking parental support in ceasing or limiting the cell phone use in class. Students lack the self-control needed to use their cell phones responsibly in schools, which has the same affect in the Worthington public schools in Ohio. The use of student cell phones in school has become a pandemic that is harmful and causing a great hurdle in our educational system.

Although laws are in place that allow teachers or administrators to search cell phones (Alexander et al, 1984), a reason to search needs to exist. Simply using the cell phone in class is not enough reason for teachers to search or take cell phones from students. Teachers can not simply take cell phones away or search them without justifiable cause, as this is a violation of student privacy under the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, what else are teachers to do?

Again, according to Prothero (2024) in an additional publication regarding cell phone use in schools published in Education Week, the suggestion was to put student phones into a brown paper bag and staple it shut. There needs to exist a more professional option for controlling this great distraction and weapon of destruction for our children besides resorting to the weakness of a brown paper bag to mold the futures of our youth. Our teachers are helpless.

Erin Neitzelt

Ohio Public School

Administrator and

Educator

Bokeelia, Florida