As the director of the Santa Barbara Free School, where students help shape the program, I see every day what happens when you give teenagers trust, respect and ownership.
School districts like LA Unified have banned student cell phone use throughout the school day because they largely assume that cell phones are the cause of student disinterest and poor mental health. Turn that assumption on its head and look at it from our students’ perspective. For teens, cell phones aren’t the problem—they’re the solution.
Our students are solving a range of problems beyond their control using the best tools at their disposal. Phones are the most effective antidote to the real problems: boredom, isolation, depression, and a lack of meaningful work in their lives. Why? Students work in factories 40+ hours a week! For most teens, school is a stressful full-time job, divorced from any real purpose. They are crammed into increasingly crowded classrooms, required to perform for grades and standardized tests, and forced to sit through classes for fear of punishment. Teens get distracted and tune out at every possible opportunity. Who can blame them? They cope with an unfair reality using the best tools available.
To see it firsthand, I volunteered to teach a few classes at a local high school. What I saw there made me realize how serious the situation was for teachers and school administrators.
During a class with students in a required art class, chaos reigned. Students refused to leave their phones in the “hotel,” playing mobile games and scrolling through TikTok. Some sat hunched over, engrossed in Netflix. Admittedly, substitute teachers are the least respected and most abused educators in school. I know I’ve put the substitute teachers through a lot in my life. Is this because, as so many adults believe, teenagers are a lawless and disrespectful bunch of wannabe criminals who need strict discipline?
Absolutely not. As co-director of the Santa Barbara Free School, where students help shape the program, I see every day what happens when you give teenagers trust, respect, and agency (spoiler: they take on that responsibility with pride and purpose). These high school students treated art class disrespectfully because they were treated disrespectfully first.
We’re hearing from our colleagues in conventional schools, from parents, and from our students themselves that we’re at a crisis point. Teen mental health is at an all-time low. The Health Secretary is calling for warning labels on social media. Parents are increasingly restricting their teens’ freedoms in ‘real life’ (IRL), while simultaneously giving them access to the wide-open internet – a Wild West of extreme discourse and disturbing content, not to mention an endless barrage of advertising that preys on our insecurities.
The evidence is overwhelming. Students receive an average of 200 notifications per day. Recent studies have shown that screen time and social media have a detrimental effect on teens’ self-esteem, their sleep, their grades, internalized issues such as anxiety, social anxiety and depression, and, most worryingly, body image, eating disorders and suicidal behavior in teen girls. Something has to change.
For teenagers, however, smartphones are the solution to these problems! Although they admit that “social media actually worsens their body image and causes sleep disturbances, problems with family and schoolwork,” participants in a study conducted by Boston Children’s Hospital’s Digital Wellness Lab reported that they “overwhelmingly view their media use as positive for their well-being”!
How can this be? Without healthier coping mechanisms, the underlying problems – oppressive schooling, restrictive parenting, lack of agency – seem insurmountable. While we can view phone use as maladaptive behavior, it is clear that we need to focus not only on the symptoms but also on the underlying causes.
Co-created classroom experiences change the nature of the problems students must solve. By giving students a say in what, when, how, and most importantly, why they learn, they anchor their everyday experience in work that is personally meaningful and socially transformative. By treating students as collaborators and co-creators, educators can build their confidence and agency in a world that seeks to constrain them.
Giving students more power usually involves setting school rules and expectations. But that’s not always enough. Even at the Free School, student voice ends on health and safety issues. Last year, we were unable to reach consensus on how to address the issue of cell phones disrupting our culture. So this year, we’re acting for the good of our community by banning cell phones in school.
We looked at Jonathan Haidt’s excellent book, The Anxious Generation, to get some perspective and encourage you to check out the research on his website. He advocates “four norms” that address both symptoms and causes: no smartphones before high school, no social media before age 16, phone-free schools, and more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. We couldn’t agree more.
As educators, school administrators, and school boards grapple with the phone issue, we recommend taking the discussion to a higher level—and addressing the dilemmas that lie at the core of the teen experience. We believe the trend of banning phones in schools is truly necessary. But blaming teens and phones is too simplistic, even though phone use is a symptom of several deep-rooted problems in education.
In many ways, students just need something better to do with their time.
Jesse Resnick is co-director of the Santa Barbara Free School, an independent day program for middle and high school students in downtown Santa Barbara. SB Free empowers youth to take ownership of their education through co-designed courses, community partnerships, and experiential learning.
