On April 1 Ohio State Sen. Jane Timken introduced a bill (S.B. No. 158) that would ban cell phones from Ohio public schools.
I whole-heartedly support this bill, having long advocated for school phone bans. Since 2016 I’ve conducted 25 research studies on digital addiction, and for years I have given a talk titled How to Create a Digital Wellness School Culture to parents, teachers, administrators, and students, and at educational technology, school librarian, and digital wellness conferences. This talk is built around the core idea of banning cell phones at schools.
While school phone bans have the potential to be transformational, their success isn’t guaranteed. Many phone bans fail at implementation for a variety of reasons…