From texts, to tweets, to TikTok notifications, our phones have become vessels of distraction and overstimulation. As the summer months slowly turn to fall, it can be tricky to regulate phone usage back in the school environment. Picture this: You’re in Mr. Sagotsky’s chemistry class, learning about protons and neutrons, and a bright yellow Snapchat notification flashes on your phone screen in your lap. You think it’s harmless to take a brief peek at who’s “snapping” you, but the next thing you know, it’s been eight minutes, and you missed Mr. Sagotsky’s rundown about what next week’s exam covers.
The Poly Prep administration decided to take matters into their own hands this 2024-2025 school year by implementing a brand-new phone regulation protocol. This protocol has taken a number of Poly Upper School students by surprise. From ninth-grades to seniors, these new procedures for limiting phone usage have already impacted every Poly high school student. Listen up, Poly: It’s a year of disconnection.
Over the summer, several Poly administrators configured a series of new policies to regulate phone usage in the upper school. In the ninth grade, each student must hand in their phone upon their arrival at school and retrieve it at the end of the day. In a press conference with the Polygon in August, Head of Upper School Sarah Bates noted that smartphone usage in school can be “particularly damaging for your sense of self and identity.” Upon examining the change in behaviors from a phoneless eighth grade to a phone-filled ninth grade, Bates mentioned that she observed “a lack of social interaction with one another, particularly at the ninth grade level.” Furthermore, “Ninth grade is such an important and crucial year in terms of your social relationships, whether or not you were here in middle school and maybe trying to find a new sense of self in the Upper School,” Bates said.
The tenth to twelfth-grade phone policies differ slightly from the ninth-grade ones. Bates expressed that “[She does] not want to apply nor do I think it’s appropriate for a 14-year-old in ninth grade to have sort of the same rules and regulations as an 18-year-old or 17-year-old. It’s incumbent on [Poly administration] to develop policies, guidelines, procedures that are developmentally appropriate.” Upon entering each class during the day, tenth-to twelfth-grade students must place their phones in wooden crates at the front of each classroom. This is to prevent students from becoming preoccupied with their phones during class or taking prolonged “bathroom breaks” while scrolling through their Reels page on Instagram.
There are exceptions to this rule, though, given that students can access their phones during class with explicit instruction from their teacher; this could be for using a smartphone as a tuning instrument in advanced band or an angle measurer in Mr. Feldman’s ninth-grade accelerated geometry class. Additionally, phones are taken at the Oval desk in the library before sitting down, and tenth-to-twelfth-grade students must also leave their phones in their pre-assembly classrooms instead of bringing them to the chapel. A primary difference between the ninth- and tenth-to-twelfth-grade phone policies is that older students can use them during free periods (when not in the library), lunch, and in the halls during the brief five-minute intermissions between classes.
Although it is easy to list out all of the potential benefits of limiting phone usage during the school day, it can be challenging for students to accept a sizable part of their freedom being taken away from them. When Junior Charlotte Kuchinad was questioned about the topic, she said, “I do understand where Poly admin is coming from with taking our phones away, but it can be annoying. When I’m sitting in the library, it was nice to be able to do a quick calculation on my phone calculator or connect to my headphones to play music.” Senior Aishi Malhotra said, “the adjustment from having free use of my phone to having it placed away from me is strange, especially being a senior.”
On the other hand, Junior Bo Casey said, “it is kind of nice not having my phone during my classes. It makes me focus better knowing that I can’t get lost in the digital world even when I am really tempted to.” It is still early to determine whether the disconnect from students to their phones is creating resentment against Poly administration or fostering a more productive and social environment. “If we find over the course of the next few months or six months that what we’ve instituted this year isn’t working, we’ll reinvestigate,” added Bates.
Recent heaps of research about the advantages of limiting phone usage for students during school hours have been a driving force in Poly’s decision to implement these new policies. An article published by Boston University in December 2023 stated that “it takes a young brain 20 minutes to refocus after using a cell phone in a classroom.” With sixty-five minutes per class for upper school students, that is almost one-third of class time gone just waiting for the brain to refocus.
Additionally, an article from Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business stated, “98 percent of teens between 15-17 and 91 percent of teens between 13-14 have access to a smartphone. In the same study, 46 percent of teens said they’re online almost constantly, with 36 percent confessing they spend too much time on social media.” With the number of phone usage and social media addictions skyrocketing, a vast majority of parents and school principals agree that they are in favor of banning smartphones from classrooms, according to Rice University.
Apart from a focus standpoint in the classroom, studies have shown that prohibiting cell phones during school or class hours promotes social interaction and connection among students. An article from The New York Times found that when a school in Orange County, Florida, banned cell phones for the entirety of the school day, there was “less bullying, increased student engagement, even actual eye contact between students and teachers in the hallway.” In addition, Heather Kreider, the principal of Edgewater High School in Florida’s Orange County school district, told Education Week that “the result of [a school phone ban] on a very wide scale has been extraordinarily positive for [students’] mental health from an anecdotal perspective.” Michael Rich, a pediatrician and child health researcher who founded the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said in an Education Week article, “I think that phones and social media have perhaps accelerated and exacerbated the problem [of anxiety and depression].” Hopefully, with these newly implemented policies, Poly will also show increases in mental health and positive social interaction.
Over the course of the 2024-2025 school year, Poly administrators will examine potential behavior changes as a result of screen limitations and will reevaluate the policies if necessary and positive change is not made. So, Upper Schoolers, leave your phone chargers at home and prepare for an unplugged year.
