Friday, April 24 will be a day marked by transition: spring warmth will fill with air; the school week will end with catharsis, students eager for the coming weekend; the seniors of the Class of ’26 will depart from PDS in a bittersweet ceremony. On that same day, an even greater change than all these will occur: Princeton Day School will officially instate its new phone ban. Once the seniors are sent off, this new policy decrees that students must keep their phones in their lockers for the entire school day.
Though PDS already has restrictions on phones, namely the ban in Shepard Commons, this new system will expand these limitations much further, to the point of detriment. Sophomore Amy Zhao shared this about the ban: “There’s more downsides than upsides….I use my phone to check my grades, to check Schoology, to receive e-mails. I use my phone to socialize with friends but also to study.” She gave the example of her math homework, which she does using her phone for the questions and her laptop for the textbook.
Zhao also expressed that she “needs to communicate with [her] parents during the school day.” Because many families need to coordinate pick-ups and drop-offs of multiple children, plans can often change at the last minute. Students, then, need to be able to contact their parents easily, even during school hours. During their free periods, they should also be free to relax on their phones to unwind between classes. In this way, and many others, students can utilize their phones in order to improve the efficiency of their schooling.
Furthermore, banning phones so absolutely will only prevent students from taking responsibility for their own time. Outside of PDS, there are no lockers and rules to separate people from their phones, so they must learn how to balance tasks in an environment with many unregulated distractions. If they are never given the chance to develop that balance now, in a structured setting designed for learning, how can they be expected to do so later, when that structure is gone?
Ultimately, the new phone ban does not fix the issue of distraction; it only delays it. Students must learn discipline and self-control, but just like any other subject taught in school, they cannot do that unless they are able to practice.
