Governor Kathy Hochul spoke at the New York State United Teacher Union’s “Disconnected” conference on Friday. Hochul discussed the negative impact that smartphones, and social media specifically can have on children.
Hochul expressed the background of her stance. She says that kids post pandemic rely too heavily on their handheld devices. She believes it raises stress levels and distracts kids.
Hochul said, “I have a lot of teenage nieces and nephews and I’m seeing things happening that are not positive. I started talking to teenagers, going around to schools, every corner of the state, convening them and finding out that they are so affected by the bombardment of addictive algorithms on social media throughout the day. And also the extreme cases of FOMO. They need to know what’s happening — the girls meeting in the restroom without them? Is a party being planned and they’re not there? So, these kids’ stress levels are off the charts. But meanwhile, this is during the school day when they’re supposed to be paying attention to a teacher, learning something and ultimately graduating. So it’s a huge distraction”.
She continued, taking it as far as saying that students having phones on their person could be life threatening. “When I listen to law enforcement, who said ‘if there is a crisis on the school grounds, there is a shooter running loose. The last thing you want happening is for your child to be looking on their cell phone, maybe videoing, sending messages. Trying to go viral and not paying attention to the adult in the room who is trained to get them to safety” she said.
A poll recently found that 80% of New York State United Teacher Union would agree that phones and social media do more harm than good. Eight US states have put the brakes on excessive phone time in schools this year, and many others are trying to implement similar policies on their own. It appears that more and more schools are going to make education cell-phone free, and New York could be next.
