New York plans to ban smartphones in schools, allowing basic phones only
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said (via The Guardian) that she intends to launch the bill later this year and take it up in New York's next...
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New York plans to ban smartphones in schools, allowing basic phones only
Kids, and some parents, are unlikely to be pleased
By Rob Thubron May 30, 2024 at 9:13 AM 33 comments
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A HOT POTATO: The issue of whether smartphones should be banned in schools has long been a controversial one. In New York, it appears that kids will soon only be able to use dumb phones, rather than those with full internet access, while on school property.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said (via The Guardian) that she intends to launch the bill later this year and take it up in New York's next legislative session, which starts in January 2025.
One of the main reasons why parents have objected to schools banning kids from carrying smartphones in the US – phones are banned across all schools in England – has been the need to reach their children at all times, for both emergencies and routine scheduling issues
Hochul's bill appears to address this problem by allowing children to carry phones that lack internet access but can send texts and make calls, which sounds like feature, or dumb, phones.
"Parents are very anxious about mass shootings in school," she said. "Parents want the ability to have some form of connection in an emergency situation."
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Hochul is also pushing the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (Safe) for Kids act. It would require social media platforms to provide minors with a default chronological feed composed of accounts they follow rather than ones suggested by an algorithm. The bill would also give parents more controls, such as the ability to block access to night-time notifications.
Another of the governor's bills, the New York Child Data Protection act, restricts the collection of children's personal data by online sites that have knowledge of a user's age.
Companies and trade groups have spent more than $800,000 lobbying against one or both of the acts. Unsurprisingly, the biggest spender was Meta, which paid $156,932 in its fight against the bills.
Kids are unlikely to welcome the smartphone ban. In February, a Houston high school was placed on lockdown after students stormed out of their classrooms in protest of a new cell phone ban. Physical altercations had broken out on James Madison High campus the day before news of the new policy was shared, reported the Houston Chronicle.
Even allowing kids to use feature phones might result in pushback from parents. About a quarter of notifications hitting teens' phones daily come during school hours, according to a recent Common Sense Media report, and many come from their parents. Some schools that have introduced limitations on smartphone use have seen parents transfer their children elsewhere in response.
In April, UK ministers said they are considering giving parents more control over their children's smartphone use by banning the sale of the devices to anyone under the age of 16.
