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Opinion | Don’t be fooled: The school smartphone bill won’t do much
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Michigan is failing its children. Third grade reading scores have declined almost every year for the past decade and fell to a new low in 2025. Now over 60% of third graders can’t pass the literacy test. Overall, Michigan’s schools are 44th in national education rankings.
Framed as a move toward improvement, legislators from both sides of the aisle are trumpeting an updated bill to ban smartphones in Michigan’s public and charter schools during class time. It recently passed the House with bipartisan support and sounds like good news for reducing distractions in schools. The reality, however, is that this legislation would do next to nothing.
The devil is in the details with this new bill, which only bans smartphones during instructional time. Unlike an earlier bill that banned smartphones completely in grades K-8, this bill allows kids to use their phones during lunch, recess and in between classes. What’s more, most schools already have smartphone policies, many of which are stronger than what the new bill would mandate. Nothing will change on the ground.
There are two main problems with banning phones only during instructional time. First, if students have their phones in their pockets, the temptation to look at them in class will remain. Teachers, who are already struggling to enforce existing school policies, will become the primary enforcers of this ban throughout the school day. Smartphones and social media are extremely addictive by design. It’s unfair — and ineffective — to ask children to resist technologies that many adults can’t put down themselves.
Research has shown that the closer a student is to their smartphone, the more “brain drain” they experience. College students who had their smartphone in another room scored higher on tests of working memory and fluid intelligence than when their phone was in their pocket or bag. Test scores went down even more when their phone was on the desk, even though they did not interact with it at all. A student might look like they are listening to their teacher but actually be wondering if their phone just vibrated or how they should reply to a friend on the next break.
The second issue is that allowing smartphones at lunch and in-between classes robs students of crucial face-to-face socialization. Kids will continue looking at their screens instead of talking to each other. Youth mental health is at a crisis point, and these devices are making the situation worse. The latest research suggests that spending a lot of time on social media doesn’t just correlate with depression, but can cause it. When kids are struggling with depression and anxiety, they can’t focus on learning.
Twenty states, plus Washington, DC and the Virgin Islands, have already figured this out and completely banned smartphones in school. These bell-to-bell bans free children from distraction and toxic or bullying social media interactions. They also free teachers from having to repeat enforcement at the beginning of every class. After kids get used to the bans, test scores go up while disciplinary action and absences go down. States from across the political spectrum, from New York to Texas, have gotten phones out of schools. In Louisiana, students can’t even use a smartphone on a school bus.
I teach at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and my husband is a high school teacher. As educators and parents, we are imploring the Legislature to change course and get this right. I attended Michigan public schools my entire childhood. I have lasting memories of meaningful interactions with my teachers and fellow students — in and outside the classroom. It breaks my heart that my children are being robbed of these same experiences.
Governor Whitmer said that the literacy crisis is her #1 priority during her last year in office. If our leaders are serious about improving our dismal situation they need to put forward bills that go beyond superficial, difficult-to-enforce mandates and make real changes to classroom culture.
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