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HARTFORD — A proposal to ban cellphones in Connecticut middle schools is unlikely to pass this year, but one lawmaker is pushing for further discussion on the measure and hopes it becomes law in 2025.
Cellphone use in public schools “has been a deep concern of mine,” State Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, told CT Examiner. “We have seen almost a perfect coincidence correlation between the rise of mental health problems among adolescents — including anxiety, depression and, most worryingly, self-harm — and the rise of social media and the ubiquity of smartphones for teenagers.”
According to the National Library of Medicine, evidence from a variety of empirical studies implicate smartphones and social media use in the increase in mental distress, self-harm behavior and suicidal tendencies among youth.
And according to Gitnux Marketdata Report 2024, 95% of students bring their phones to class every day, 92% use them to text in class, and 10% admitted to having texted during an exam. In addition, the report found, schools with cellphone bans have seen a 6.4% rise in student test scores.
Fazio, who has been a strong proponent of the issue for several years, said he usually gets a positive response when broaching the topic with adults, but not students.
“When I speak to constituents about my ultimate desire here, the parents are overwhelmingly in favor,” he said. “The teachers are overwhelmingly in favor. The only people who are somewhat opposed are the kids.”
Fazio said he preferred that middle schoolers be permitted to use filp phones in class in case of an emergency, as the devices don’t allow users to download apps nor access to the internet.
Several schools in Connecticut, including Newtown Middle School, have already started banning cellphones in certain grade levels. The idea also caught the attention of Gov. Ned Lamont who, in his State of the State address in February, suggested that students lock away their phones during the school day.
“My goal is to start the conversation and continue to elevate the conversation,” Fazio said.
Newtown Schools Superintendent Chris Melillo said the middle school is currently in its first year banning cellphones. He added that the idea came from school Principal Jim Ross, who said the devices were a distraction.
“We saw a lot of distraction from students using phones in class,” Melillo said. “The biggest argument [against the plan] was safety, but we ran all of this through our Safety Committee.”
However, there was an initial pushback.
“I think [the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting] was on people’s minds. I’m sure it was,” Melillo said, adding that the schools have hardwired phones they can access in an emergency situation.
Melillo explained that middle schoolers give their cellphones to staff when they enter the school and pick them up at the end of the day. So far, he said, it’s been a success. However, he’s against mandating the policy statewide and said each school district should decide what’s best for them.
“The state has been mandating a lot for schools that it shouldn’t be doing,” Melillo said. “Legislation, in general, many times is created without input. Sometimes, it is created without the understanding of what dominoes are going to fall in either direction, whether it is financial or logistically speaking.”
Town school leaders and lawmakers are also divided on the issue.
In Stonington, school board member Kevin Agnello said he “wants to start the conversation” on banning cellphones in certain schools.
“There has been a lot of national media discussing the issue over the last few years and, I think, it’s been gaining a lot of traction,” Agnello, a former educator, told CT Examiner this week. “… I think there is strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the consistent social media is contributing to a rise in mental health concerns.”
But State Rep. Mary Welander, D-Orange, an Education Committee member, said she doesn’t see herself voting on a school cellphone ban unless the state absorbed all the costs associated with such a proposal. She explained that some school districts in the country put students’ smartphones in magnetic Yondr pouches.
“I would never vote in favor of a mandate unless the state was paying for all of the products and implementation costs in perpetuity,” Welander said.
In the meantime, UConn’s Neag School of Education has been tasked with conducting a state study to evaluate the mental health of students related to social media and phone usage. In 2022, the state Legislature earmarked $500,000 for the study, which will examine the habits of sixth- or seventh-grade students in four districts. Adam McCready, the lead researcher on the project, said the study will be done during the 2024-25 school year.
McCready explained that the study’s segment on cellphone usage involves different approaches across the four middle schools — some schools will permit cellphones and education regarding social media and technology, while others will not. Students partaking in the study will also take a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the school year.
Results will be delivered to lawmakers by October 2025, McCready said.
“Folks have looked at the intersections of social media use in mental health, but there has been no real examination, to my knowledge, of students social media use, mental health and these various interventions,” he said.