On May 9, 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a ban on the use of student cellphones on campus for K-12 students.
The majority of students thus far have had negative interpretations of this ban. Most teachers reacted enthusiastically. The parents’ reactions are mixed, with some encouraging the act and others being skeptical.
From my perspective, the phone ban has been negative. It isn’t due to our school, but my problem with this is with the actual law. I believe there are certain positives, such as my increased focus in class from the constant buzzing of my phone now eliminated. I also like how I can see the differences in conversations between my peers, as we seem more lively. However, I am almost 18 as a senior. I can enlist in the military, and I gain the ability to vote for the president. I see the vision, but in all truth, I have a slight disagreement with it.
The reason New York State made this decision was evidence about the positives and negatives of losing cellphones, since they have become commonplace in teenagers’ lives. As I went through the rabbit hole of information regarding the ban, test scores were the second largest argument. According to Anna Aldric of Prepscholar, the average SAT score from 2006-2016 across the nation had fallen by 34 points. Even after implementing a new system in 2017, there was a continuous decline from 2017 to 2024 of 36 points.
Based on my observations, there are certain distractions that are now limited without phones in the hallways, classes, and lunches. However, students have been pessimistic about the ban, and this has resulted in certain scenarios where phone pouches are hit into the ground, left empty or filled with fake phones, and phones that are simply left in cars or bags.
On the condition of anonymity, I spoke with students from Vestal, Union Endicott, Johnson City, and Maine-Endwell. Many opinions expressed the same disdain for the ban, as a Johnson City student stated, “I hate it; there is no way that I am going through it again. I came to high school expecting to have more independence, and instead, I can’t call, text, or use my phone. I feel restricted, and how am I going to be able to learn independence and be an adult without learning when to and not use my phone?”
Another opinion from a student in Vestal stated, “I don’t like it because it restricts us from being able to do things we could before, like studying and Quizlet, which really helped me a lot. If I want to show my teachers things such as art project pictures, it takes extra steps. Additionally, if I have questions about the textbook and I want to take pictures of it, how can I show my teacher? Email it to myself, making more work and taking more time now? It is defeating the purpose of having phones.”
As a senior who has seen how Vestal High School has functioned with and without phones, there is definitely a shift in how much people talk to one another. As I’ve spoken to teachers, there’s been a definite change in students’ attentiveness.
I conversed with a strong supporter of the phone ban, Mr. Arbuiso. He discussed the interactions between students with and without cellphones, “I have been a teacher for 23 years at Vestal, and as students got the newer phone models, they began to get lost in them. As a teacher, and more so as a parent, I could see that the students’ lives were getting hurt because their phones were running their lives. Cellphones were sucking kids in like a black hole. Halls became quiet, classes became quieter, and nobody talked to anyone anymore. Any kid that was even just a little shy retreated ten times”. Mr. Arbuiso added that since the ban went into effect, he believes students are more social and having more fun in school, playing games and talking to each other, once again.
That said, some students have worried about the equality of the punishment system, with a student from Vestal stating, “I personally find that I don’t use my phone to begin with, so it didn’t really make a difference. But when I see others with their phones out, it makes me slightly annoyed because what gives one person the right to use their phone when all of us will get punished?” As a result of this quote, I asked Mrs. Young a similar question, and she gave me her statement.
As I had my meeting with Mrs. Young, I obtained a broader understanding of how the new ban is not only a burden for students but also for staff. They were simply given the framework of the law with limited provisions and guidelines to correct the phone situation on their own. In the grander scheme of the state, we have had some of the most impressive and quality regulations, as Mrs. Young stated, “We get a lot of guidance from the company [Yondr]. They actually did an on-site visit here at the high school in the fall, watched the procedures, talked with us about what was going well, so they could give us recommendations, and they actually wanted us to provide support for other schools. They said we have the best implementation they’ve ever seen”.
Our school has not only been positive throughout the school year, as there have been some problems with disciplinary action and with certain individuals continuing to break patterns of following the rules, but that’s why our school has implemented a stringent set of disciplinary actions. Mrs. Young described the progressive punishment, “Students face progressive consequences for offenses, similar to driving violations. While possession of a cell phone does not warrant suspension, insubordination or disrespect can lead to disciplinary action. The handling of the situation determines the response, starting with a warning and potentially involving a call to a parent”.