A “Teachers’ Bill of Rights”
In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 379, one of a set of state education laws known as the “Teachers’ Bill of Rights.” The measure established new rules for Internet safety, required districts to educate students about the risks of social media and block access on school devices, and prohibited students from using wireless communication devices, including phones, watches, and earbuds, during instructional time unless directed to do so by a teacher for educational purposes.
The large, urban district that we study took an even stricter approach, setting a bell-to-bell policy requiring that wireless communications devices be silenced and put away in students’ bags during the entire school day, including lunch and while transitioning between classes. In keeping with the statewide law, students with special needs were allowed to use their devices to monitor a documented health condition. In the case of a schoolwide emergency, students were allowed to take out and use their devices.
The new rules were in effect at the start of the 2023–24 school year and enforced after a short grace period. Starting after Labor Day, if a student violated the rules, their device was to be confiscated and returned at the end of the day. In addition, the student could be punished, including being suspended from school.
This new ban occurred in a context in which cellphones—and in particular, smartphones—have become pervasive in American middle and high schools. In 2024, 95 percent of teenagers and 57 percent of children aged 11–12 had their own smartphone. Those figures have risen rapidly over the last decade; in 2015, just 67 percent of teenagers owned a smartphone.
During that time, incidents of depression and anxiety among adolescents have soared. The share of high school students who report experiencing persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness increased to 40 percent in 2023 compared to 30 percent in 2013. These trends have triggered public debates about the causal link between the rise in smartphone use among adolescents and decline in their wellbeing. Rigorous evidence about this causal link remains scant. Still, many argue that the adverse effects of smartphones on social isolation, sleep deprivation, and attention fragmentation are responsible for the observed declines in adolescent outcomes (see “No Simple Answer for Kids and Screens,” reviews, September 2025). There is indeed descriptive evidence suggesting that prolonged use of smartphones in children and adolescents are associated with higher rates of anxiety and depression, body dissatisfaction and eating disorders–especially among girls—sleep issues, and cyberbullying.
The potential link between smartphones and student achievement is also a growing area of concern (see “Anxiety, Depression, Less Sleep … and Poor Academic Performance?” what next, Winter 2024). In 2024, 12th-grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) fell to a 30-year low, with nearly one-third of students scoring in the lowest “Below Basic” category. Scores had peaked in 2009. And on NAEP student surveys in 2023, the share of 13-year-olds who say they read for fun “almost every day” was about half of what it was a decade earlier: 14 percent compared to 27 percent in 2012.
