Santarsiero finds strong local support for proposed cellphone ban

A Central Bucks West High School teacher said at a meeting Tuesday evening that the learning environment at CB West has improved dramatically now that students can no longer use their cellphones in class.

“This year has been absolutely wonderful” compared to last year, said psychology teacher Christie Besack. 

The difference is a ban on smartphones during instructional time. 

“It just really sets the tone. This is a place for learning. It sets aside the digital distractions. It protects the learning environment…. This seems to be really changing the classroom environment for us.”

State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-Doylestown) hosted the meeting to discuss Senate Bill 1014, which he cosponsored. The bill, which would ban cellphones from classrooms from “bell to bell,” unanimously passed the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. Senator Devlin Robinson (R-Allegheny County) is the prime sponsor.

“Each year, more and more studies are showing the negative impact of smartphones on the development of our children,” the sponsorship memorandum said. 

“Historical data shows a steep decline in mental health in children between 2010-2019 where rates of depression and anxiety rose 50%, the suicide rate for adolescents ages 10-19 rose 48%, while the suicide rate for girls ages 10-14 rose and astonishing 131%.

“Just last week, a new study published in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities found that children who receive smartphones before the age of thirteen were significantly more likely to experience serious mental health problems in early adulthood including aggression, emotional instability, and suicidal thoughts. Yet the average age for a child to have a smartphone in Pennsylvania is reportedly 10.5, a number that seems to get younger every year.”

And “between 2010-2015, U.S. teens with smartphones rose from 23% to 73%, with a quarter admitting to being online “almost constantly.”  Now, teens spend an average of nearly eight hours a day on their phones, equivalent to a full-time job, and receive an average of 237 notifications on their phone a day.”

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill psychology professor Mitch Prinstein spoke about the latest research on kids’ use of cellphones.

He said that 50% of kids with smartphones are reporting “at least one symptom of clinical dependency on their device use, particularly social media. This is concerning.” 

Kids are excessively using their devices and showing withdrawal symptoms when they can’t access them, he said.

“Findings in the last two weeks, research we’ve uncovered that kids are using their devices for 20 minutes of every hour during the school day when they’re in school,” he said. And 75 percent of what they’re doing is viewing social media or entertainment.

“So, we can verify that kids are spending a remarkable amount of time doing nonacademic activities with their device in school,” said Prinstein. 

Secondly, findings from a national sample of about 15,000 kids, including Pennsylvania students, shows “on every single measure of cognitive development,” including memory, reading, cognitive ability, and comprehension, “the more kids are using social media, [they are] are scoring meaningfully lower on all of those metrics. So, we’re really seeing an effect on intellectual development.

“Seeing the more kids are using their screens, we’re seeing less cortical development in the brains,” and the regions of the cortex most affected are related to attention deficit disorder. 

“Kids are addicted. They try to stop on their own but they can’t. They need adults to come in and try to protect them,” Prinstein said. Cellphone usage is changing kids’ brains, reducing intellectual capacity and “leading to symptoms.”

Kristin McGowan a Bucks County parent and member of Wait Until Eighth and PA Unplugged, a group that is pushing to keep kids off social media and devices until they are at least in eighth grade, also spoke.

After sharing an iPad with her elementary-age children, McGowan realized, “something doesn’t feel right.” She said the research supports “making some different choices.”

“School is not just a place for learning reading and math,” said McGowan. “It is a place to culturally build your social-emotional awareness and have a safe place to build new relationships, try new things. And I think the research in the schools that have made the shift are seeing their lunchrooms are lively again, the conversation in the hallways and the richness of the dialogue in the classroom has changed, and so it is beyond just the academics,” including “building a whole person.”

Parents can wait until the end of the day to talk to their kids about things like a soccer practice change or dinner plans. 

“We need to swing back to being a little more untethered to let our kids develop into the amazing humans they’re meant to be,” said McGowan.

Santarsiero said it is “alarming” that kids’ brains are being “rewired” by their cellphones.

Asked to comment, North Penn High School senior Giuseppe Schiano di Cola said he supports that the bill would allow school districts the freedom of determining how to implement the ban. But he believes that students will resist the change and “enforcement is always a challenge” for teachers. 

“Overall, I’m happy to see Republicans and Democrats come together for what is seen as a commonsense issue,” said Schiano di Cola, chair of the Pennsylvania High School Republicans.

Thirty-seven states have adopted school smartphone bans, according to Ballotpedia. 

The bill has some exceptions for English as a second language students and those with individualized education programs, as well as teachers using phones in a narrow instructional manner approved by their principal. 

Santarsiero hopes the bill will pass both chambers and go into effect for the 2027-28 school year. He also put a petition on his website.

Linda Stein is a Philadelphia-area journalist.