Since Indiana’s school cellphone ban went into effect in 2024, classroom distractions haven’t disappeared. But they have become a little more old school.
Students now pass notes and notebooks, doodle, write poetry, and talk to their neighbors, teachers say. But all of these diversions are less diverting than a phone.
“None of those things come with the FOMO of seeing another kid scrolling on their phone. There’s not a compulsion to write poetry because your neighbor is writing poetry,” said Jon Bernardi, a math teacher in Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. “Kids are talking to each other more, there are fewer distractions in the class, and my morale is better because I don’t have to gripe about the phones.”…