As the 2025-2026 academic year kicks off, New York state’s cellphone ban has gone into full swing.
In April, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation to place a statewide bell-to-bell ban on smartphone usage in all K-12 classrooms. However, the restriction did not go into place until this academic year.
“For too long, students have sat in schools with their cellphones in their hands, distracted by looking at TikTok dance videos,” Hochul said Thursday at a middle school in New York City. “You don’t realize it right now, but by the end of this school year, you’re going to be happier, have more friends, be smarter, and that’s what we’re here at school for.”
While studies have found that teenagers who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of developing mental health disorders, teenagers spend an average of five hours each day on such platforms, according to Gallup.
Another issue students currently face as a result of overuse is a lack of resilience towards challenging tasks, according to Dr. Anthony Anzalone, Director of Outpatient Child and Adolescent Health at Stony Brook School of Medicine.
“It creates this cycle of avoidance,” said Anzalone. “When kids are constantly being pulled into the algorithm, they aren't able to deal with states of boredom or discomfort. They're in the middle of doing a term paper, and they switch to their phone. That alleviates some of the discomfort, but only for a little bit. And that term paper is still there.”
A 2022 report by Common Sense Media found that the average teen spends between seven and eight hours on their phone daily, leading to concern surrounding student interaction.
“It's an opportunity for kids to learn the proper way to communicate, whereas they have not had that through their devices,” said Anzalone regarding the new policy. “The conversations we have in the virtual world are not as fulfilling and not as enriching as conversations that we have in real life. I think it is critical to teach students how to interact with one another.”
Some parents and guardians have criticized the ban over concerns of not being able to communicate with their children throughout the school day. However, students are able to use school phones and main office lines if contact is needed.
“Even speaking to your parents or sending that text message, it is still a distraction,” said Anzalone. “Yes, it's a great thing to let your parents know if things are going right or even if things are going poorly, to be able to tell them that. But we want them to be in a distraction-free environment. So we want their attention to be on the board and to be with their friends, and then parents can have, you know, all the time in the world once they get home, to have to foster those connections.”
Each school district's individual policy is available online.
