California joins growing national effort to ban smartphone use in schools

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday called for a nationwide ban on the use of smartphones in California schools, joining a growing national effort to combat cyberbullying and classroom distraction by limiting access to the devices.

Mr. Newsom, who has four school-age children, said he would work with state lawmakers this summer to drastically limit phone use during the school day in the nation’s most populous state. His directive came hours before board members of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, voted to implement their own smartphone ban that could take effect in January.

“When children and teens go to school, they need to focus on their studies, not their screens,” Newsom said in a statement.

Efforts to restrict devices on campus cross political lines, as Republican-majority states like Florida and Indiana have already instituted their own restrictions. New York City left it up to individual campuses to set their own policies after dropping a blanket ban on cellphones in 2015, but Gov. Kathy Hochul said last month she would pursue a statewide ban by 2025.

The measures in California followed a call this week from US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, to post warning labels on social media platforms. He said these were fueling a mental health crisis among adolescents.

“Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media are at double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms,” wrote Dr. Murthy on Monday in an op-ed for The New York Times. “And the average daily use in this age group was 4.8 hours in the summer of 2023.”

Many California school districts already have restrictions on cell phone use during the school day, but teachers and administrators can struggle to enforce these restrictions. What’s more, the policies are so lax that devices can still disrupt daily activities.

For example, in Los Angeles, students are prohibited from using their phones during class, but are allowed to take them out during breaks. School board members said Tuesday they now want to ban the use of phones and social media platforms during the day.

Some parents have objected to bans in the past because they fear losing access to their children in the event of a school shooting or other emergency. And teachers unions have been reluctant to take on the responsibility of having to enforce the policy, though they also welcomed efforts to prevent distractions.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said he wanted the California Legislature to tighten existing cellphone limits in classrooms for the state’s more than 5.5 million public school students before the Legislature ends in August, an announcement first reported by Politico.

Mr. Newsom has previously signed legislation in 2019 that authorizes, but does not require, counties to implement cellphone bans. He signed an online safety law in 2022 that requires websites and apps to install protections for children, and followed that up last year by urging California tech industry leaders to drop a lawsuit challenging the requirement.

Both bills passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in a state legislature where such cooperation is rare and Democrats have overwhelming control over the agenda.

Last year, a study by Common Sense Media found that 97 percent of teens used cell phones during the school day. A study published in April A Pew Research Center survey found that 72 percent of U.S. high school teachers and 33 percent of middle school teachers said cell phone distraction was a major problem in their classrooms.

Mr. Newsom, whose two oldest children are teenagers, has learned firsthand how difficult it is to navigate a world where social media and smartphone use are widespread.

Last month at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, Mr. Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, accused the tech industry of failing to tackle social media addiction and other mental health issues among young people that are exacerbated by technology. At one point, she said, she and her husband pulled one of their daughters out of school because of cyberbullying by adults that was then replicated by the child’s classmates.

Smartphone use in schools, typically addressed at the local level, has increasingly drawn the attention of officials in several states as teachers have complained about the academic cost of distraction and experts have raised alarms about the impact of social media on adolescents’ mental health.

Last year, Florida passed a law requiring public school districts to ban students from using cell phones during class, and some districts are banning cell phones throughout the school day. Indiana passed a similar law this spring that requires school districts to ban portable wireless devices in classrooms starting next school year, except in emergencies.

Vote Tuesday by the Los Angeles Unified School District board implement a smartphone ban would affect more than half a million students at more than 1,400 schools.

Longtime board member George McKenna voted against the proposal. He argued that teachers were already struggling to enforce existing restrictions, and parents needed to be able to reach their children during natural disasters and other emergencies. And, he predicted, it’s only a matter of time before students circumvent the ban.

“Children will be children no matter what age they live,” he said.

But Nick Melvoin, one of the board members who sponsored the proposal, said the district was helping lead a national movement.

“When the government put warning labels on cigarettes almost 60 years ago, 42 percent of adults in this country smoked. Now it’s only 11 percent,” he said. “I think we’re leading the way here, and students and the entire city and the entire country will benefit.”

Jonathan Wolfe contributed reporting from Los Angeles.