Governor Glenn Youngkin (R., Va.) signed an executive order on Tuesday directing the Virginia Department of Education to implement a cellphone ban in K–12 public schools by the beginning of next year as similar policies sweep across the U.S.
Under the order, the state’s education department will draft guidance for school districts to limit students’ use of phones during the school day. The department will collaborate with teachers, parents, students, and local school leaders to develop practices that “establish the age-appropriate restriction or elimination of cell phone use during instructional time,” per a news release from the governor’s office.
“Today’s Executive Order both establishes the clear goal to protect the health and safety of our students by limiting the amount of time they are exposed to addictive cell phones and social media and eliminates clear distractions in the classroom,” Youngkin said in a statement.
“It also kicks off the robust conversations among parents, students, teachers, and school and community leaders necessary to design and implement these policies and procedures at the local level.”
The Virginia Department of Education’s draft guidance must be published by August 15, and final guidance must be issued in September following feedback from members of local communities. The cellphone-free policies will be implemented by January 1, 2025.
The move comes weeks after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned about the negative effects that social media has on adolescents’ mental health and called for Congress to place health-warning labels on social-media platforms to combat the issue. Such a warning label would be similar to the ones seen on alcohol and tobacco products.
“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents,” Murthy wrote in a New York Times op-ed last month. “A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.”
The surgeon general’s plea to Congress comes a little over a year after he issued a public-health advisory, calling attention to the harms that social media poses to young adolescents. In the May 2023 warning, he recommended that lawmakers, platforms, and parents alike create safe limits for minor access to such apps.
The average number of hours that teenagers spend on social media a day amounts to 4.8 hours, a 2023 Gallup poll shows. Three hours on social media per day is enough to double teens’ risk of anxiety and depression, according to a 2019 American Medical Association study. Moreover, a 2022 survey found that almost half of teens say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.
Murthy’s recommendation has set cellphone bans into motion across the nation. New York City officials will soon release an official plan to limit phone usage in schools, and Governor Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) is planning to propose legislation that would prohibit smartphone use in schools statewide. Governor Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) is looking to do the same after the Los Angeles school board voted to approve cellphone restrictions.
Florida was the first state to implement a statewide cellphone ban for its public schools last year. Indiana, Minnesota, and Ohio are also moving toward limiting or outright banning cellphone use during school hours.
In Virginia, the Loudoun County school board adopted a cellphone measure covering the entire district last month, and the Fairfax County school board greenlit a pilot program in May to store students’ smartphones during class.