What We're Reading: Princeton Is Not Alone in Thinking Twice About Smartphones in the Classroom

Princeton, NJ – A July 30 posting at TAPinto Princeton by Princeton resident and public school teacher Brian Levinson raised some serious questions about the deleterious effects of addictive technology, especially smartphones, on school students. Levinson is not alone in expressing his concern.

Last week in an article for Bloomberg CityLab, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg (and the founder of the media company) was quoted calling for a ban on phones and other the devices in the New York schools, citing their “devastating effects on learning.”

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The lead researcher for New York University professor Jonathan Haidt, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Anxious Generation , also advocated for stricter controls over students’ smartphones in the classroom.

“Kids are feeling isolated, lonely, disconnected. They’re also performing poorly in schools,” said Zach Rausch, an associate research scientist at the NYU Stern School of Business. “A large reason for both of these problems in the infusion of addictive tech in schools.”

The Bloomberg CityLab story described the experience of the high school in Newburgh, New York, where students eventually got used to not having their phones at the ready and began to become more engaged in the classroom and during breaks.

And the Haidt book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness , attributes much of the anxiety to what he calls a “phone-based childhood” as opposed to a “play-based childhood.” The book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 17 weeks and is now No. 1.

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For a link to a preview excerpt from The Anxious Generation click here .

Have a comment? E-mail rrein@tapinto.net .

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