Metro

A bipartisan group of state senators are calling for a state ban on cellphone use by students in school.

In their cosponsor memo, the lawmakers point to research released earlier this month that found that when children get smartphones before age 13, they are more likely to experience serious mental health issues.

An industry survey found that the average age at which youth in Pennsylvania get a phone is younger than 11.

The move comes as lawmakers across the country have cracked down on student cellphone use over concerns about the way constant phone use interferes with students’ ability to focus on academics and impacts their mental health.

More than two-thirds of public school officials said they think cellphone use is negatively affecting students’ mental health and more than half said cellphone use is negatively impacting students’ academic performance, according to a recent survey by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Teens get an average of 237 notifications a day, with about one-quarter of those alerts arriving during the school day, according to the watchdog group, Commonsense Media.

Twenty-seven states have already restricted cellphone use in school. Last session, lawmakers introduced multiple versions of school cellphone bans, but none became law. Instead, the school code update passed with the budget specified that schools can use state safety grant funding to buy lockable cellphone bags if local school officials enact cellphone bans.

A review completed by legislative staff in Michigan found that Pennsylvania is one of just two states that have offered an incentive for local officials to ban cellphones in schools rather than implement a statewide ban.

“While the Commonwealth has continued to provide financial resources to help students in need of mental health services, we must also target one of the root causes of our children’s mental distress: widespread access to smartphones and social media apps,” according to a memo released Monday by Sen. Devlin Robinson, R-Allegheny, Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, and Sen. Steven Santarsiero, D-Bucks.

“While the broader discussion of whether age limits should be applied to smartphones and social media, we can make an immediate impact to improve the health and academic performance of our children through distraction free learning while at school.”

The legislation has not been introduced yet. However, in the memo, the lawmakers say the bill would require schools to ban cellphone use by students during the school day, with exceptions for students who have medical conditions or individualized education plans that require the use of a phone.

While there is ample evidence cellphone use by teens has negative effects, the benefit of banning cellphones in school is less clear.

Research published in April in The Lancet found no evidence that banning cellphones in schools made a substantial difference in students’ mental health or academic performance. The researchers surveyed students in 20 schools with cellphone bans and in 10 schools with permissive cellphone policies.

“Adolescents attending schools with restrictive phone policies did not differ in their sleep duration and efficiency, physical activity, academic attainment and disruptive classroom behavior, compared to pupils who attended schools where phone use was permitted during the school day,” according to the researchers. “One potential explanation for this lack of observed difference is that restrictive school phone policies did not lower the overall time adolescents spent on their phones/social media.”