To the editor: I am a retired teacher and administrator from the Los Angeles Unified School District and I fully support banning smartphones during the school day. I suggest that there is an even more important reason for doing this than those mentioned: children scroll and swipe on their phones instead of reading books.
In 1984, a National Assessment of Educational Progress survey found that 35% of 13-year-olds read for pleasure almost daily. In 2020, the last year reported, that figure had dropped to 17%. Is there any doubt that the percentage is even lower today?
The journal Psychological Medicine published a study in 2023 revealing that children who read for pleasure “obtain higher scores on tests of skills such as memory and speech development; had fewer behavioral problems and symptoms of depression, and showed an advantage in certain measures of brain structure,” US News & World Report reported.
Other research has found that reading books for pleasure contributes not only to higher test scores, but also increases empathy, critical thinking, and self-esteem and reduces loneliness (ironic, since reading a book is an alternative to “social” media).
Schools must be brave and take bold but necessary steps to ban smartphones.
Kirk Jordan, Long Beach
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To the editor: Smartphones were just becoming fashionable when I retired from teaching.
As naïve as I was about those things, it never occurred to me that students could not only communicate by text during class, but they could also text during exams. On one occasion, I caught a student in the back corner of the class talking quietly to her mother while I was teaching.
As teachers and administrators, we try to think of ways to eliminate cell phone use. In middle school and high school, students would even argue with you in front of the class if you tried to take their phones.
I'm a little surprised to read that some districts are still facing the problems I faced years ago. Furthermore, the same arguments, particularly about student safety, are used to justify the continued use of phones.
With new evidence that eliminating cell phone use leads to better academic performance and less bullying, I hope, for the sake of teachers and students, that districts can solve this annoying problem.
Lynn Lorenz, Newport Beach
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To the editor: I taught high school in LAUSD for 38 years, before smartphones.
Students never needed to call parents during school hours. In case of a real emergency, they could go to the office. A parent may contact the school if they need to contact a student.
Students and parents should plan ahead for pick-up times and other events, as they did in the past. For over 100 years, students in Los Angeles didn't have phones, and today should be no different.
Ban phones on campus.
Janet Cupples, Sherman Oaks
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To the editor: Since cell phones were allowed in schools, children have been more distracted from learning and there has been more bullying.
The purpose of school is not only to learn the curriculum, but also to learn about social norms towards other human beings. What children learn from social media in many cases is to troll or belittle their fellow students.
There is no need for cell phones in schools except in emergency circumstances. They do not need to be banned, but rather stored in the classroom at the beginning of each class and retrieved later, and the rules of use should be stricter.
Harry Schwarz, Agoura Hills
