States Tackle Classroom Screen Time with New Legislation
As concerns about student screen time grow, lawmakers across several states are stepping up efforts to regulate how long children spend in front of screens during school hours. The move follows a wave of bipartisan support for school cellphone bans.
This year, four states have enacted laws to manage screen time from childcare to fifth grade. In Iowa, legislation limits digital instruction to 60 minutes daily for kindergarten to fifth-grade students, with exceptions for special education and assessments.
Meanwhile, Utah has tasked its education board with crafting technology rules that include screen time restrictions for kindergarten through third grade and a ban on one-device-per-student ratios in elementary schools, as per a new directive.
Tennessee’s new law mandates that all districts and charter schools create a digital device policy to reduce unnecessary screen time for K-5 students. Alabama has also set standards for screen time and teacher training from childcare to kindergarten.
Not all efforts have succeeded, however. In Missouri, a bill to require screen time policies for kindergarten through fifth grade stalled in the Senate despite passing the House. Similarly, Oklahoma’s proposal to limit screen time to 60 minutes per day for prekindergarten through fifth grade students also failed, facing opposition from the technology industry.
In Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school district is one of the first to implement systemwide screen time limits by grade. The district has restricted instructional screen time before second grade and instituted limits that grow to 60 minutes per subject weekly for middle schoolers and 90 minutes for high school students.
Inanna Balkin, a high school senior in Massachusetts, highlighted the importance of teaching students to manage screen time, stating, “Automatically not having access to your phone or a screen during the day kind of doesn’t allow for students to be responsible for their own management when school is over.”
While national data on classroom screen time is lacking, the issue has caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is focusing on potential harm from excessive screen use.
Education strategy expert Tracy Weeks argues that focusing solely on minutes is misguided. “The policy focus has been on minutes, and that’s the wrong conversation to be having,” Weeks stated. “Scrolling for 10 minutes is not the same as actually interacting with a tool for learning.”
Virginia now requires schools to educate students on the addictive potential of electronic devices, while Maine is directing research into technology use in classrooms, including time spent on school-issued devices.
