By State Sen. Thomas Albert
A couple years ago, I was traveling with my family to visit friends out of state. At a gas station in the middle of nowhere, I gathered my young kids to show them a relic they may never see again.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked. My kids hesitated, and after a pause, one finally answered — “a phone?” Yes, the pay phones I used to check religiously for loose change when I myself was a kid have now been replaced with cellphones.
It has now been roughly 25 years since cellphones became a staple of our daily lives. For the first decade or so, these changes primarily affected adults. However, with the advent of the “smartphone” around 2010, there has been a profound impact on our kids. There are benefits in communication and convenience, but the impact has been largely negative when it comes to their mental health. Many societal trends have contributed to a dramatic rise in anxiety, major depressive disorders, and suicide rates among young people. The addictive access to social media, inappropriate websites and video games through smartphones has worsened the situation.
In schools, we can add distraction and a disrupted learning environment to the list of issues exacerbated by cellphones. A study published last year by Common Sense Media, in association with a researcher from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, found that on a typical day, more than half of the teens surveyed received at least 237 notifications on their cellphone. About a quarter of those notifications came during school hours. It’s another obstacle in the fight to keep students focused, recover learning lost during the pandemic, and reverse Michigan’s ongoing slide in academic performance.
It’s becoming clear that addressing cellphone usage in the classroom could be a significant step in the overall effort to improve academic performance and mental health among our young people. More and more schools are recognizing this and proactively adopting cellphone policies on their own, restricting use or even prohibiting students from having them in class.
I do not think it is appropriate for the state of Michigan to establish a single specific statewide policy on this issue. We have local school districts for a reason, and they are better suited to craft policies that best fit their circumstances with input from parents. Concerns such as communicating during emergencies must be taken into consideration, and the available technology for that may vary by school. That said, I do think it is within the state’s purview to require every school district to establish its own policies on cellphones, whatever they may be. It is too big of an issue to ignore.
I recently introduced legislation that would require a school to have a districtwide policy on cellphones in classrooms in order to receive mental health grant funding. No school would be required to have a particular policy, but they must have a policy of some kind. If they do allow cellphones in classrooms, the school would need to notify the state as to their reasoning.
We rightfully invest billions of dollars educating our kids every year, and we rightfully have spent hundreds of millions to help promote their mental health in schools. To make those investments more effective, and to do what is best for our kids, we must meet real problems head-on. Cellphone usage in classrooms is one of those problems.
State Sen. Thomas Albert represents the 18th District, which includes Barry County and portions of Allegan, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Kent, and Ionia counties.