This legislative season, one bill is at the forefront of everyone’s minds — including my own. Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, Rep. Douglas Welton and the Policy Project have joined forces to introduce new legislation prohibiting the use of electronic devices during school hours. The proposed legislation would ban cellphone and smartwatch use entirely during all instructional hours. The Devices in Public Schools bill would require a one-time cost of $4,850,000, and would take effect on July 1, 2025.

For many teachers and students across the state, this bill promises a sort of … liberation.

Allow me to explain: It’s no secret that smartphone use is a widespread fact of life for teenagers worldwide. The average teen spends roughly 7 hours and 22 minutes on their phones per day, which equates to 43% of their waking hours. What’s more, surveys from the same platform have discovered that 97% of adolescents report using their phones during school.

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So, what are the effects of these little black boxes which occupy so much of our lives? Science has proven that the usage of smartphones, and specifically social media, decreases our academic performance, erodes our ability to focus, chips away at our sleep and increases our mental health issues. Many platforms pump billions of dollars into honing, marketing and optimizing the addictiveness of their algorithms in order to streamline their revenues. As Sen. Ed Markey put it at a hearing in 2021, “Facebook is just like Big Tobacco, pushing a product that they know is harmful to the health of young people, pushing it to them early, all so Facebook can make money.”

With that knowledge in mind, it’s no wonder that so many teens fall into the trap of wasting time online. It’s essentially a losing battle between the straggling willpower of a teenager and the might of multibillion-dollar organizations.

In the classroom, the devastating effects of such uphill battles become obvious. Students are spending more time scrolling through reels than paying attention to lectures. Those experiencing the effects of 40-second-long attention spans struggle to sit down and work. Teens suffering the mental health casualties of such platforms, including anxiety, depression, FOMO, poor self-esteem and suicidal thoughts, aren’t in any state to prioritize academics.

As a result, the general consensus among teachers is that smartphone use is making it impossible for them to effectively teach — supported by the fact that 90% of teachers support banning smartphones during educational hours. With that in consideration, the proposed Devices in Public Schools bill is exactly what teachers have been begging for.

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You may be surprised to learn that many students, including myself, are begging for such a bill as well. As a high schooler who has to juggle grades, extracurriculars, a part-time job, studying for the ACT and team leadership positions all while maintaining a social life, I simply don’t have time to waste. I’ve taken measures to avoid certain platforms, yet somehow I still end up averaging three to four hours on my phone per day, which could be much better spent on more worthwhile pursuits. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, resisting the pull of technology is designed to be an uphill battle.

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At the end of the day, it comes down to 104 Utah State Legislators voting “yea” or “nay” on the Devices in Public Schools bill. Teachers are begging for such legislation, and students are suffering the devastating academic, cognitive and mental health effects of cellphones during school. Fighting against technology-borne distraction is designed to be an uphill battle, and students themselves are seeking scholastic liberation. A resounding “yea!” is what this bill deserves.

As John F. Kennedy put it, “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

Fellow concerned citizens, stand with me in protecting our most fundamental resource. Support a bill to ban cellphones during school.

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