I hand out ice packs and bandages, but most of what walks into my office now is anxiety, and the phone is almost always in the story. The CDC's 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found 57% of teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless, and bullying, much of it starting or spreading on phones during the school day, is a documented driver. Common Sense Media found teens receive a median of 237 notifications a day, a huge share of them during school hours, which is not communication, it is harassment by volume. A school cannot fix a teenager's whole digital life, but it can give them seven hours where the pile-on pauses. I have watched kids exhale when the phone goes in the pouch. That exhale is the policy working.
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