As the new school year starts Indiana students will spend their school day without the constant pull of smartphones. Gov. Mike Braun and the Indiana General Assembly deserve credit for recognizing what teachers have known for years: children cannot learn when every lesson competes with a notification. In an era when nearly every issue becomes political, this one should not.
Indiana’s new bell-to-bell cellphone law is one of the most meaningful child wellness policies our state has adopted in recent years. The average American teenager spends more than seven hours a day on screens outside of school, more time than most of them sleep, and among heavy users, roughly one in four reports symptoms of anxiety or depression. Teen depression doubled between 2011 and 2021, a period that tracks almost exactly with the rise of smartphones as constant companions. The law sends a clear message that schools exist to educate children, not to compete with social media companies for their attention.
As a physician, I applaud that decision. As a father, I know it is not enough. I remember a night not long ago when my daughter was telling me about her day while I nodded along, phone in hand, half-reading an email I had already read twice. She stopped talking. Not because she was angry. Not because she was hurt. She simply learned, somewhere along the way, that she was competing with something she could not beat. That moment has stayed with me far longer than the email ever did…