U-High’s new cell phone policy, set to take effect in the 2025-26 school year, aims to reduce distractions, improve mental health and encourage in-person connection. While the goals may be well-intentioned, the policy’s design brings unintended consequences — ones that may harm the very student experience it hopes to improve.
To be clear: the core of the policy has merit. Encouraging less screen time through additional restrictions can improve face-to-face interaction and greater focus in class. Time and time again this has proven to boost mental health and increase interaction among students. U-High’s step towards fostering a better environment for students is a step in the right direction.
However, at an academically demanding school like U-High, students are under constant pressure. Students balance heavy course loads, college classes and extracurricular activities. For many students, phones aren’t only distractions but also tools to help manage busy schedules packed with many commitments and responsibilities.
Free periods, which might seem like a time to relax, are rarely that. Students cram homework, studying and meetings, and without phones, these blocks of time become even more isolating and rigid, pushing forward the grind culture that is already rampant at U-High. If students can’t text a friend, check in with a parent, or even indulge in a quick scroll, the conversation this policy aims to create won’t take place. Instead, students will be more burnt out, more tired and more isolated.
The policy also unintentionally encourages students to leave campus, something not exactly ideal for community building. Instead of staying on campus and maybe spending the afternoon in a library working with friends, students may choose to go home or other off-campus locations just to be able to use their phones, drawing students away from campus and making face-to-face connections harder.
Moreover, it creates logistical headaches, having students jump through one more hoop to just figure out a simple thing. Need to confirm a ride home? Want to check if you locked your car? Find a designated office, ask for a pass, get a timestamp and explain to an adult. All this is just to send a quick text or make a phone call.
Approaches like this don’t teach balance or responsibility, they teach avoidance. Instead of managing phone usage, it teaches students to hide it. Managing phone usage is a skill that will be needed for past high school, and the message that phones are inherently bad and need to be removed from daily life is just not realistic. What students will learn isn’t self-regulation and how to focus on fixing an addiction, they’ll learn how to sneak around the rules. That’s not maturity, it’s evasion.
Screen time does need boundaries. In a time with such rampant addiction to short-form content and dopamine, measures need to be taken. However, those boundaries should be thoughtful, flexible and rooted in student experience, not just policy. While the phone policy has taken a step in the right direction toward fixing this crisis, it must account for specific situations where phones can be helpful, and avoid a blanket approach which may cause negative consequences.
A rule meant to foster connection shouldn’t unintentionally lead to isolation, and a policy meant to help students shouldn’t ignore what students need to succeed.
