By Jonathan Haidt
Editor’s note: Jonathan Haidt is the author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” a 2024 book which argues that the spread of smartphones, social media and overprotective parenting have led to a rise in mental illness.
Vermont is at a critical crossroads.
Think back to your own school days. How much learning, friendship and fun would have been lost if you had been allowed to bring a small television set to school and watch it all day long, even at lunch and recess? It may seem like an absurd question — a television set? At school? — but it is precisely the reality that students today are experiencing.
Since the early 2010s, U.S. middle and high schools have seen a startling increase in mental illness and psychological suffering among their students. The acceptance of smartphones in schools has fueled cyberbullying, conflict among students and a cumulative, enduring and deleterious effect on adolescents’ abilities to focus and apply themselves. This is especially harrowing as nearly half of American teens say that they are online “almost constantly.”
This isn’t just about mental health. Globally, test scores have been dropping since 2012. In January, new data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that reading and math scores in the U.S. have dropped to their lowest levels in decades.
Right now, Vermont has the opportunity to restore the school day. H.54/S.21, introduced by Rep. Angela Arsenault, D-Williston and Sen. Terry Williams, R-Rutland earlier this year, calls for all students in Vermont to access the benefits of a phone-free and social-media-free school environment. If passed, Vermont will join the dozens of states across the country that are currently working to address this important issue.
Vermont will also join countries including Australia, Brazil, France, Finland, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands that have passed legislation or enacted policies to limit or eliminate cell phone usage by students.
In a divided country and a world of diverse nations, we have seen education policy on this subject move at astonishing speeds. Why? Because parents and teachers around the world have seen the damage done to students’ attention, education and mental health when they spend much of the school day on their phones texting, scrolling and posting on social media, watching videos and playing video games.
A 2024 survey of school principals showed that they were similarly alarmed by the effect of smartphones on students, with 88% stating that they were making children tired and distracted, and 85% believing it was amplifying violence and bullying in schools. No wonder that, in 2023, a major UNESCO report considered the overwhelming evidence that excessive phone use was correlated with lower school performance and poorer mental health and called for the ban of smartphones from schools.
H.54/S.21 requires that all Vermont schools prohibit students from using personal electronic devices during the school day while protecting the autonomy of school decision-makers to decide how they want to implement the mandate in a way that works best for them.
The proposed Vermont legislation is among the strongest in the nation — mirroring model legislation put forth and supported by national organizations, including a requirement that schools stop communicating with students via social media. Many schools have become dangerously reliant on social media to communicate with students about school activities like sports or theater, or even using Instagram direct messages to chat with students. I applaud Vermont for addressing schools’ overreliance on social media both within and outside of the school day.
Moreover, I am pleased by the bell-to-bell device separation mandate that applies to all schools in H.54/S.21. While many jurisdictions in the U.S. are limiting student phone use only during instructional time (which is certainly a step in the right direction), I am glad to see Vermont taking among the strongest efforts in the nation to protect our children.
Limiting phone use only during instructional time still allows for students to rush to their phones between classes, at lunch and during recess, costing them valuable opportunities to connect with one another face-to-face.
Moreover, research from the National Education Association found that 73% of teachers in schools that allow phone use between classes report that phones are disruptive during class. In contrast, of the several policies examined, only the phone-free or “away for the day” policy produced good results: only 28% of teachers in such schools said that phones were disruptive during their classes. It’s only when students have six or seven hours away from their phones that they fully turn to each other and to their teachers.
Walk around most school hallways today and take in the silence, notice the eeriness. In contrast, whenever schools adopt a bell-to-bell policy the reports from teachers and administrators are always the same: “We hear laughter in the hallways again.” Also, bullying, disciplinary problems and absenteeism decline. School becomes more fun.
In passing H.54/S.21, Vermont can bring conversation and laughter back to the hallways of nearly 83,000 students.
Social media is designed to steal the attention of kids and teens who are at pivotal stages of their mental development. Our kids are owed their attention back. They are deserving of the learning, friendship and fun that we recall from our own schooling experiences. Vermont students are pleading for it. And, for now, the one place where we can truly safeguard that is schools. We need to give our kids a break from the noise and the drama. We need to — and Vermont can.
