The Morning: Smartphones in schools

September 6, 2024

	By David Leonhardt

Good morning. We're covering smartphones in schools — as well as the Georgia school shooting, a trial in France and A.I. music.

A safe with individual numbered slots for confiscated cellphones. More than a dozen phones are inside the safe.

Confiscated phones in Orlando, Fla. Zack Wittman for The New York Times

A turning point?

Several times a year, I visit a high school or a college to talk with students about how I do my job and how they see the world. On a typical visit, I spend a few minutes in the back of the classroom while the teacher is conducting another part of that day's lesson. These experiences have shown me what a dominant — and distracting — role smartphones and laptops play in today's schools.

From my perch behind the students, I can see how many of them are scrolling through sports coverage, retail websites, text messages or social media, looking up occasionally to feign attention. It's not everyone, of course. Some students remain engaged in the class. But many do not.

I would have been in the latter group if smartphones had existed decades ago; like many journalists, I do not have a naturally stellar attention span. And I'm grateful that I didn't have ubiquitous digital temptations. I learned much more — including how to build my attention span — than I otherwise would have.

Above all, my recent classroom experiences have given me empathy for teachers. They are supposed to educate children, many of whom have still not caught up from Covid learning loss, while in a battle for attention with fantastically entertaining computers. A growing body of academic research suggests it isn't going well.

Twister and pickleball

In Orlando. Zack Wittman for The New York Times

But school officials and policymakers have begun to fight back. It's probably the most significant development of the 2024-25 school year.

At least eight states, including California, Indiana and Louisiana, have restricted phone use or taken steps toward doing so. They are following the lead of Florida, which last year banned phones in K-12 classrooms. Other states, including Arizona and New York, may act soon. (My colleague Natasha Singer, who's been covering this story, discussed these policies on an episode of "The Daily.")

At the schools that have restricted phones, many people say they already see benefits. In a Florida school district that Natasha visited — and that went even further than the state law requires, banning phones all day — students now have more conversations at lunch and play games like Twister and pickleball. Before, children mostly looked at their phones, one principal said.

Of course, there are still some hard questions about these policies, including:

How do schools enforce the rules? And what is an appropriate punishment for breaking them?

Should schools ban phone use only during class time or for the entire school day? To put it another way, is a more social lunchtime worth the downside that parents can't easily reach their children?

How can teachers incorporate technology into lessons, as the new laws generally allow, without undermining the policies' benefits?

A mixed blessing

Even with these difficult questions, the new policies may represent the start of a broader shift. For much of the smartphone era — which began with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 — Americans treated the rapid spread of digital technology as inevitable and positive.

Now people view it as more mixed. "Smartphones have brought us a lot of benefits," Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, told me yesterday. "But the harms are also considerable."

Children's mental health has deteriorated during the same years that smartphone use has grown. Loneliness has increased, and sleep hours have decreased. In surveys, both teenagers and adults express deep anxiety about their own phone use. By many measures, American society has become angrier, more polarized and less healthy during the same period that smartphones have revolutionized daily life.

Social scientists continue to debate precise cause and effect, but many policymakers, Democrats and Republicans alike, argue that the country can't wait to act. Murthy agrees. "There's an urgency to this," he said. "What we need now is a great recalibration of our relationship with technology." As encouraging examples, he cited schools' new phone policies and the student-led Log Off movement.

If the country ultimately looked back on unfettered smartphone use as a mistake, it wouldn't be the first time that a public health campaign took years to have an impact.

Russell Shaw, the head of Georgetown Day School, an elite private school in Washington, D.C., recently wrote an article for The Atlantic explaining why he was banning cellphones in all grades. Shaw described the ways that constant phone use had harmed social life and learning during his 14 years at the school. Yet he began the article with a historical anecdote on a different subject: When his parents attended high school in the 1960s, they received free samples of cigarettes on their cafeteria trays.

"I believe that future generations will look back with the same incredulity at our acceptance of phones in schools," Shaw wrote.

THE LATEST NEWS

Georgia School Shooting

The father of a 14-year-old accused of killing four people at a Georgia high school this week was charged with second-degree murder.
A year before the shooting, the F.B.I. interviewed the suspect and his father about whether he had posted threats online. The teenager said he "would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner." Read more about the interview.

JD Vance, campaigning in Arizona, described school shootings like the one in Georgia this week as an unfortunate "fact of life," calling for stronger security.

International

A woman wearing sunglasses and a white shirt.

Gisèle Pelicot, who consented to be photographed in an open trial. Lewis Joly/Associated Press

A woman in France spoke publicly in court against her former husband, who is accused of drugging her over almost a decade and inviting dozens of men to rape her. She described herself as a boxer who repeatedly stood back up.
President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier, a conservative, as France's new prime minister, months after the snap parliamentary elections.
More than 30 Catholic priests and missionaries moved from the West to remote Pacific islands after they were accused of sexually abusing children, or had been found to do so. (The Pope is visiting the Pacific.)
China is banning most international adoptions. Foreigners in the process of adopting are in limbo.
It's been the hottest summer on record, European officials say.

2024 Election

Donald Trump, speaking to New York business leaders, promised a commission to assess government efficiency. He said Elon Musk would lead it.
Trump also suggested he would repeal President Biden's signature climate law, calling global warming "not our problem."
Trump again threatened to jail his political opponents, accusing them of weaponizing the legal system against him. "Two can play the game," he said.
Tim Walz campaigned in Pennsylvania, a battleground state. He spoke with dairy farmers as a Trump flag flew in a neighbor's yard.

Trump Legal Cases

The judge overseeing Trump's Jan. 6 criminal case set a quick schedule, letting prosecutors present evidence by the end of this month.
Still, a trial is unlikely to begin before Election Day. If Trump wins, he's likely to fire the special counsel and order the Justice Department to toss out the case.
Separately, the judge overseeing Trump's Manhattan criminal case plans to rule today on whether to postpone sentencing until after the election.

MORNING READS

A man in a blue polo shirt stands a prosthetic leg on a table while three other technicians in the same uniform watch. A wheelchair can be seen in the background.

In the Paralympic Village. James Jill for The New York Times

Fix-it shop: These technicians at the Paralympic Games repair wheelchairs, prostheses and even damaged sunglasses.

Backlash: When Gambia banned female genital cutting, a 96-year-old practitioner resisted. Her case led to a campaign to make it legal again.

Ultraprocessed foods: Are some worse than others?

Last-chance tourism: More people want to visit vanishing glaciers, but climate change is also making the sites unstable.

Boosters: Where and when should you get another Covid shot? Here's what the experts say.

Lives Lived: The journalist Steve Silberman stripped away the stigma surrounding autism in his 2015 book "NeuroTribes." He was also an archivist for the Grateful Dead and wrote liner notes for several of the band's albums. Silberman died at 66.

SPORTS

U.S. Open: Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz, good friends, play a highly anticipated semifinal tonight. The winner will become the first American man to make the final since 2006. The American Jessica Pegula will play in her first Grand Slam singles final tomorrow.

Paralympics: An actress gave up her career to help her baby son, whose leg had been amputated. Almost two decades later, he won two gold medals in track.

Soccer: Alex Morgan, an icon of the U.S. women's national team, announced her retirement. Read about her legacy.

N.F.L.: The Kansas City Chiefs are 1-0 after a win over the Baltimore Ravens in last night's season opener. It was decided by a toe.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A laptop on a wooden table with a red chair.

In San Francisco. Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times

A.I. is causing problems for streaming. A North Carolina man used artificial intelligence to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs by fake bands. Then he put them on streaming services where an audience of fake listeners played them, prosecutors said.

Penny by penny, he collected $10 million, prosecutors said. Now he's charged with fraud.

More on culture

Nicole Kidman in a beige and black dress with a bustier than extends upward in a shape akin to moth wings.

Nicole Kidman Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

See the 15 best looks from the Venice Film Festival.
See the 10 most anticipated art shows this season, including Sienese art at the Met and Pan-African art throughout Chicago.
Seth Meyers joked about claims that Trump and Vance are weird.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

A pot of red sauce with olive oil rising to the surface, along with slices of garlic and wilted basil leaves.

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Make a classic marinara sauce.

Fall in love with big band jazz.

Refresh thrifted clothes.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was fraught.

And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David

P.S. David Leonhardt appears on today's episode of "The Daily" to discuss affirmative action in higher education.

Editor: David Leonhardt

Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner

News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti

Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson

News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu

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Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch

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