Maybe these tech bros are onto something
Monday, Feb 23, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller
* This recent story in Fortune magazine started me thinking about the governor’s proposals to ban mobile phones in school classrooms and the “Children’s Social Media Safety Act”…
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen said at a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business last year that he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content, noting that it might be better to limit kids to videos longer than 15 minutes. […]
At the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, early Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel joined Chen among the ranks of tech leaders who are setting strict limits on screens. Thiel said he only lets his two young children use screens for an hour-and-a-half per week, a revelation that prompted audible gasps from the audience. […]
Other tech CEOs, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, have also spoken about limiting their children’s access to devices. Gates has said he did not give his children smartphones until age 14 and banned phones at the dinner table entirely. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in 2018, said he limits his child to the same 1.5 hours per week of screen time as Thiel. And finally, Musk, who bought the social media company X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, said it “might’ve been a mistake” to not set any rules on social media for his children. […]
Scientific research backs up their parenting instincts. A 2025 study of nearly 100,000 people found that short-form video use was consistently associated with poorer cognition and a decline in many aspects of mental health across both younger and older social media users.
* From the governor’s one-pager on the classroom phone ban…
School districts would be required to adopt the set of policies that best fits their needs within the following parameters:
• Banning Personal Devices During the School Day: Wireless communication devices will be banned for the entire school day, with the following exceptions:
o Schools must allow exceptions:
▪ When a medical professional determines that the possession or use of a wireless communication device is necessary for the management of a student’s health care.
▪ To fulfill an Individualized Education Plan or 504 plan.
▪ When the device is necessary for students who are English learners to access learning materials, participate in class, or otherwise facilitate communication.
▪ When a student is a caregiver and is routinely responsible for the care and wellbeing of a family member.
o Schools may choose to allow exceptions:
▪ For high school students to access their phone during their lunch period.
▪ In the event of an emergency or in response to an imminent threat.
▪ When a teacher or instructor has authorized the student to use a wireless communication device for educational purposes—e.g. Chromebook use, technology-based activities, etc.
o Enforcement of these policies via fines, fees, suspensions, expulsions, ticketing, or deployment of a School Resource Officer or a local law enforcement officer will be prohibited.
• Creating Device Storage Options: Each school district will identify guidelines for wireless device storage during the school day that best fits their needs to prevent use, loss, or theft.
* And this is from the governor’s summary of the Children’s Social Media Safety Act (HB5511/SB3977)…
Big tech companies have abandoned their responsibility to keep kids safe online, with social media presenting as a growing concern for parents and families in Illinois and across the nation. Numerous studies show that tech companies have knowingly designed features and algorithms designed to encourage overuse—leaving young people vulnerable to numerous health concerns like eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. In addition to algorithms, strangers have made more inroads than ever before to exploit and potentially harm children. Parents need more tools to protect their kids, and kids need to know they are safe when they’re online.
The Children’s Social Media Safety Act will:
• Prohibit social media companies from providing an addictive feed and sending nighttime notifications for users under 18, decreasing the harmful effects of social media use.
• Increase child safety online by requiring social media companies to apply default privacy settings based on a user’s age to protect the user’s location data and profile information.
• Prevent financial abuse by requiring apps and websites to obtain parental consent for in- app purchases and financial transactions between children and unknown users.
• Allow parents to choose which online actions they want their children to engage in.
How will this work for families?
When a parent or guardian is setting up a new device with their child, the device’s operating system will be required to confirm the child’s age. The device will share the child’s age with apps when downloaded, which will then be required to enact default settings based on that age. Once that’s done, the Children’s Social Media Safety Act requires the device to share a general age range with websites and apps who are required to use the following default settings for kids:
• No addicting algorithmic feeds
• No nighttime notifications
• No on-platform location sharing
• No user profile sharing
• No in-app purchases without parental consent
• No financial transactions between children and unknown users
As we’ve discussed, he’s also proposing a $200 million “fee” on social media companies that’s advertised as going to education.
Anyway, your thoughts?
- Shytown - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 12:42 pm:
There is study after study that shows early access to phones, screens and social media is messing with children’s ability to learn, socialize, develop their executive functioning, etc. There’s no reason for these things to be in the classroom. This is one of the most impactful things we can do for the education of our children, and it won’t cost a dime.
- Candy Dogood - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:00 pm:
We don’t need the Tech Bros weighing in, the American Academy of Pediatrics has already weighed in on this. Kids should have limited screen time. It’s bad for development at all stages of development.
I don’t know why we pretend like education with a tablet is better. We’ve seen the results so far and they are not great.
What, do we really have to wait for the generation that pretended Oregon Trail was educational when they got to go to the shared computer lab full of Apple IIs to be responsible for setting policy before we acknowledge we’ve gone astray?
The algorithm ain’t feeding kids an education. We see what it does to adults. We should stop pretending.
But that’s going to be hard.
- CA-HOON! - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:04 pm:
My kids’ school district in So. Ill has banned phone use in class for the high schoolers and an all day ban for elementary through middle schoolers. A state-wide ban has been a long time in coming imho. The science has been in about how poisonous unlimited internet and especially social media can be to children (and adults for that matter). It’s past time that major legislation addressed it, I wish this could go farther than just schools but I know that is whole other can of worms to open so I’ll be satisfied if this passes. Then they can work on the next laws to come and tweak existing ones.
- Marge - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:20 pm:
I’d argue a cell phone ban does very little to reduce screen time unless there is a plan to reduce the dependence on ed tech as a whole. You can’t have a cell phone but here is a Chromebook to do all your assignments online?
- Joseph M - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:22 pm:
The phone ban is a slam dunk. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t pass unanimously.
- Duck Duck Goose - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:26 pm:
I was all for screen bans up until I heard that the Tech Bros were also for them. Now I think the issue might need more study.
- Thomas Paine - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:30 pm:
The problem is not the technology, but how we use it.
It takes time for information to be captured by short term memory and saved to long term memory.
If you read a book for an hour on your tablet, you will retain it just the same way you would reading the paper version.
If you scroll through 120 videos or social media posts on an hour, you will retain almost none of it.
So, you banned cell phones, but you’ve still got kids jumping from window to window and app to app on their Chromebook?
It diminishes retention and we can be fairly confident of that because we have data that correlates learning retention and screentime.
- JP Altgeld - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:38 pm:
One day, we will look at these devices and their apps the same way we look at cigarettes. And that isn’t just related to children.
It is beyond absurd that we let these things into classrooms - there is no rationale. Safety being the worst excuse yet.
- JP Altgeld - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 1:42 pm:
@Thomas Paine
I usually agree with you but I am in total disagreement here. This is one area where it actually *is* the technology. The human brain, at any age, is not able to withstand the bombardment of dopamine it gets from these things.
The Chromebooks are another problem but kudos to at least starting with the phones. It’s a beginning.
- JS Mill - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 3:52 pm:
=It is beyond absurd that we let these things into classrooms - there is no rationale. Safety being the worst excuse yet.=
Computers have been in the classroom since the 1980’s. The internet has been widely available in schools since the late 90’s. 1:1 programs started to proliferate in the mid 2000’s
2008 (1 year after the iphone) is when most of the issues we see with kids started really showing up. They had the ability to text before that but it was only texting.
When 1:1 started going strong many schools started with iPads (2010) and we quickly found out that they were a real security issue. Chromebooks were far cheaper and much easier to lock down than iPads of pc’s. Chromebooks were an easy and, by far, the best choice for schools.
You can argue (as I have for the last 9 months) that 1:1 and no textbooks are not a good solution and I agree. I was recently called a “luddite” by another, much younger superintendent, because I said we were pulling back on fulltime Chromebook use. K think there is a balance that we can find that teachers responsible tech skills (even if they are not reinforced at home) but also teaches the needed critical thinking skills that AI is killing.
We have to have tech because it will be needed in pretty much any career. But we can balance it much better. That said, we may go back to the old computer labs, if not the chromebook is still far and away the best option.
BTW- I have shared this before- our district is in year 3 of no phones and it has been great. Declines in discipline and increases in face to face interaction. Our lunch rooms are back to 2007. When I say no phones I mean none between 8:00am and 3:00pm (the only exception is we have a student that uses it as a glucose meter).
With respect.
- OneMan - Monday, Feb 23, 26 @ 3:54 pm:
T-Pain
That isn’t what the research shows.
Differences in understanding the temporal component of what is read
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6384527/
Some other resources
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kindle-nook-e-reader-books-the-best-way-to-read/#:~:text=Reading%20on%20paper%20may%20boost,%2C%20and%20hence%20the%20story.%22
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/well-read/202402/the-case-for-paper-books-vs-e-readers