“Born after 1995, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone,” states Dr. Jean Twange in her book iGen. We are a part of this generation, but now we have some slight guidelines.

With the 2018 school year already in swing, the students of The John Cooper School were welcomed back with a new cell phone policy. It states that all students, at the beginning of every class, must put their phones into a cell phone box, staying there during the class period and picked up at the end of class. Many students voiced their opinions on the topic, “Consciously knowing you don’t have your phone on you changes the way you think,” said junior Christian Winston. This statement is also supported by science! The Elite Daily says, “the researchers found that when students had their phones and other electronic devices in class, by the end of the semester, their marks suffered by nearly half a letter grade, or 5 percent on average.” Some sites even say that most teens are addicted to their mobile devices. By having the cell phone policy we can be preventing any cases of further usage in class.

Although the science is there to back up our new cell phone policy, some students aren’t thrilled about the new phone boxes. As Pablo Flower put it, “We need to develop self-control and self-discipline to handle this ourselves, and this policy takes that away; this new policy could hurt us in college.” Other students have concerns about checking the time or forgetting their phones in class, but overall the reactions have been positive, with Levi Gowen stating “I like the new policy because we are only allowed to have our phone for a restricted amount of time.”

Students are not the only people that must follow the new rule. Teachers must also put away their phones. Gillian Crane explains how in staff meetings they have begun to put phones away, and even to adults, it feels as though something is missing.

Now, how did the cell phone policy begin? “It wasn’t one article that stuck out, it was a series of things…” states Stephen Popp, “Smartphones are the most plausible explanation for some of the shifts in mental health and well being of our students or of young people.”

The main purpose of this rule, as stated by Upper School principal Stephen Popp is “giving discretion to teachers to allow students to use their phones and technology, but we also [make] sure that the learning process is not interrupted and there is no pressure to check phones.” There are many different opinions on the rule, but many can agree that putting your phone away for the past couple of weeks has already made a difference, focusing on the material at hand causes one to retain new subjects easier even if they don’t know they are. Let’s just be grateful we aren’t living in France as, according to Reuters, “France’s action [to totally ban cell phones in school] has stirred debate in other countries like Britain and Ireland on whether they should take a cue from Paris on the ban in schools nationwide.”

At the end of the day, Mr. Popp summed it up as “a really healthy thing to do, and we are continuing to look for insight on how we can best support [the students] to learn and also looking at research [to support it].” This is our generation, our lives. So will you let your phone control you?