Report backs school cell phone ban
State social media panel gives recommendations to districts
By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... After parents, teachers and policymakers watch an entire generation of children grow up with largely unregulated and easy 24-7 access to social media and smartphones, a new report from the state Education Department's social media commission is recommending "bell-to-bell" cell phone bans for adolescents in schools.
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The report, titled "Growing Up Online," was cerated by a 2023 law to study social media's effects on adolescents, and it offers guidance to New Jersey's public school districts, including charter and renaissance schools."
..... "The evidence is clear," the report says. "while social media offers opportunities for connection and expression, it also poses serious risks, form cyberbullying and addictive use patterns to privacy threats, sleep disruption, and mental health decline."
..... "School districts should adopt and implement policies on student cell phone use by instituting a bell-to-bell ban on the use of cell phones and social media in school," the report says. Governor Phil Murphy had already called for the measurer to pass during his State of the State address, earlier this year, [2025] and some schools have implemented bans without waiting for the Legislature to act.
..... Public schools in Montclair, Sussex County and Ramsey have all instituted some form of cell phone limitation in schools, from putting phones away in security pouches that automatically lock during instruction to restrictions on using them in buses.
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Despite the clear evidence touted in the state-commissioned report, and nearby New York state implementing cell phone bans throughout its schools in September, [2025] the New Jersey bill, S3695, has stall. it has not moved passed the Assembly, even thought it passed the sate Senate in January. [2025] The Assembly Education Committee approved the bill in March; [2025] the next step would be for Democratic Speaker Craig Coughlin to put it up for a vote in the Assembly.
..... The Democratic-majority Legislature has been in recess since the summer, [2025] and a new session has not been scheduled. A new session generally begins after the November election. Voters will elect a new governor, and all 80 seats in the Assembly are on the ballot.
..... Sponsors of the bipartisan bill did not immediately return calls asking about the delay.
..... The report was produced by a commission, appointed by lawmakers and Murphy, that included parents and student representatives, and representatives from the New Jersey State School Nurses Association, the New Jersey Association of School Psychologists, after school care advocates, a doctor, and a state Education Department assistant commissioner, among others. it contracted with Rutgers University School of Communications and Information to review research literature and to survey over 900 parents and 200 students, all state residents, on social media usage and their concerns.
..... The federal government must pass the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act and the Kids Online safety ac, the report says. those "critical" laws "protect minors from Online harm such as cyberbullying, dangerous viral challenges, sextortion, and other digital threats."
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The state should pass laws requiring "social media platforms to implement strong default privacy settings for minors, restrict data collection and third-party access," and block targeted advertising and tracking, the report says. It also says the state should prohibit social media companies from allowing children under 18 from creating accounts without their parents' permission.
..... The report says the recommended minimum age for using social media is 16 - and that parents should "delay" children's access to it.
..... Despite the promise of connecting with peers and innovative uses that social media brings, its over use, especially among teenagers and children, results in increasing academic decline, generalized anxiety, depression, sleepless nights, addictive sue, and the "often-unseen toll" on family members trying to do what is right, the report says.