Out of service: New phone ban in accordance with CA’s AB 3216 stirs controversy at MSJ

By the Smoke Signal Editorial Board

Assembly Bill 3216 (AB 3216) — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Phone-Free School Act — was first proposed in 2024 as a solution to the current rise in teen mental illness rates. Once passed, it required all CA public schools to adopt or implement individualized cell phone bans by July 1, 2026. The bizarre patchwork of district-to-district policies emerging from AB 3216 has been met with widespread backlash — from students frustrated by a perceived administrative overreach and parents concerned over their children’s safety, to teachers bewildered by ad hoc regulations across districts.

Whether we like it or not, digital technology has become deeply enmeshed into our current education system, and total blanket bans — like MSJ’s  restriction of personal laptops and iPads on top of phones — can severely hinder productive work. Homework, textbooks, gradebooks, and almost every other aspect of education has been digitized through platforms such as Aeries, Google Classroom, and Canvas. Certain classes on campus — including AP Art, AP Computer Science A, Yearbook, Intro to C++, and the Smoke Signal itself — practically run on students’ ability to use personal computers and devices during school hours. For example, AP Art requires iPads and laptops to access a multitude of digital software required to produce digital art, and despite that, personal devices have still been restricted. The blanket personal device ban fails to account for these exceptions and thus fails to support the interests of the student body.

School Chromebooks, the proposed alternative to personal technology, introduce their own set of concerns regarding student privacy and surveillance. Aside from being ridiculously slow, school-distributed Chromebooks have also drawn red flags from digital privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) over their use of AI-powered monitoring platforms. GoGuardian, a widely-used educational software, has repeatedly fallen under scrutiny by EFF for invading student privacy. They have accused the software of not only creating comprehensive profiles for students based on search history and location, but also frequently generating false alerts in regards to students, including flags triggered by searches related to LGBTQ+ issues and resources — alerts that can be viewed by school administrators and others. The intent of supporting student wellness does not justify privacy-invasive technologies that may ultimately undermine students’ sense of privacy and trust.

While studies have suggested that limiting technology can benefit mental health, recent studies have yielded mixed results in schools. A nationally representative study conducted by a variety of researchers from Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, etc. examined schools using Yondr’s lockable phone pouches. The researchers found that while the pouches substantially reduced phone usage, test scores, attendance, classroom attention, and online bullying remained largely unchanged, with student well-being even dipping slightly immediately following the phone ban. These findings suggest that reducing phone use alone does not guarantee immediate improvement in academic performance or student well-being, making blanket bans an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem.

 Especially for seniors at MSJ, many of whom will be entering adulthood in less than a year from now, autonomy is important. When schools strip students of choice in deciding how they use technology, they assume a delayed maturity — that students cannot be trusted to regulate their own technology or develop the self-discipline to make responsible choices. While this approach may be acceptable in middle schools, it becomes difficult to justify for 18-year-old high schoolers. 

Technology addiction is harmful, but it is up to us as burgeoning members of society to develop the accountability to regulate our own tech usage. Regardless of whether or not there is a tech ban, it is ultimately up to the student to be responsible about their education; giving us the option to learn maturity ourselves, even in the cases where some may choose not to do so, is better than not having the autonomy to grow at all.