The alleged attacks aimed at Jocelyn Walters started piling up in the spring of 2022. It seemed whenever she pulled out her cell phone, the 14-year-old Middletown High School freshman found another insult from anonymous classmates. One day they removed her from a group chat. The next day they cut her head out of a class photo. The day after that, she was called a clown and told she would be pursued and physically beaten.
She was so scared, she locked herself in a school bathroom and then reported the bullying to school officials.
On September 9, 2022, Jocelyn Walters committed suicide. Her parents are suing the Middletown Township School District, the school board, Jocelyn’s teachers, and nearly a dozen Jane and John Does who, they claim, harassed and intimidated their late daughter.
“There are failures across the board with Jocelyn’s story, and I don’t believe it’s isolated,” Fred Walters Jr., Jocelyn’s father, told local media after filing the suit that describes his daughter’s ordeal.
“There needs to be change. I am determined to make change.”
The harassment and death of Walters may be an extreme case, but it underscores the dilemma—some would say, threat—that cell phones and new technology pose to young people in the social media era, prompting New Jersey to consider a statewide ban on cell phones in schools.
Teachers and school administrators all across the state, from elementary school up, say they’re exhausted fighting with YouTube and TikTok for the attention of students who were born and raised in the digital world. There’s ample evidence, teachers point out, that smartphones, tablets and wearable tech are not only a major disruption in class, but promote cheating and impact academic achievement overall.
And they say cyberbullying, a growing phenomenon that’s been documented in studies and implicated in student-on-student intimidation, has led to an erosion of school safety in New Jersey and elsewhere.
“Enough is enough—our children are inundated with screens,” Governor Murphy has said of cell phones in schools. Photo: Shutterstock/lev radin
“The use of phones and tablets for bullying is widespread and pervasive,” says Elisabeth Ginsburg, executive director for the Garden State Coalition of Schools, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents more than 100 New Jersey school districts. “That’s one of many reasons why teachers in New Jersey are pretty much universally in favor of some kind of smartphone ban in schools.”
Most schools in the state, both public and private, already have some kind of rules restricting smartphones. The policies are a hodgepodge of ad hoc practices and enforcement measures—some successful, some not—throughout New Jersey’s 600-odd school districts.
These restrictions usually stop short of a total ban, bowing to parental concerns about safety in the age of mass shootings.
During the coming year, however, districts across the state will likely revisit and revise their policies amid a growing sense of urgency about the threat that social media poses to young people.
In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy spelled out clear evidence that social media has helped fuel a mental health crisis among American adolescents.
Murthy, issuing an official advisory, reported that teens and tweens who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression, with half of all adolescents blaming social media for making them feel shame about their bodies. He called for a warning label on all social media platforms.
Murthy’s warning, on top of a stream of other warnings of damage to students, prompted Governor Phil Murphy to call for a statewide cell phone ban in schools during his state-of-the-state speech in January.
“Enough is enough—our children are inundated with screens,’’ Murphy said to cheering lawmakers and their guests. “Today, I am officially announcing my support for a new proposal that will direct school districts across New Jersey…to establish phone-free schools.”
Legislation now advancing in Trenton after Murphy’s remarks requires all districts to develop policies that would effectively ban phones and other internet-connected tech during instructional time.
But just what the word ban means in a diverse state of urban and rural school districts with long traditions of home rule is a matter of debate. Does a ban mean no phones allowed in school? Or will they be allowed if turned off? Will phones be restricted to lockers or backpacks? Can kids turn them on at lunch and between classes?
Any ban proposed by Trenton risks raising the hackles of local taxpayers from Sussex to Cape May counties , who already bear the financial burden of state mandates. It also flies against conservative headwinds betokened by Donald Trump’s strong performance here in last year’s election.
The tilt rightward was driven, in part, by a growing, self-styled parental-rights movement that has taken root in many school districts. Some New Jersey mothers who organized to resist state policies expanding rights for LGBTQ students say they’ll never cede control of their kids’ cell phones to politicians in Trenton.
Adding to their voices is a chorus of complaints across the political spectrum, who say the post-Columbine era of active shooters and school lockdowns demands constant access to their children.
“I will determine how my kids use their phone, not the state,” says Nicole Stouffer, a biostatistician from Burlington County who writes a popular conservative blog called Chaos and Control.
“Kids need their cell phones for safety reasons. They need them if they get sick or have other emergencies and can’t get to school authorities. They need them because things can come up in the middle of the school day.’’
Stouffer ticks off anecdotes about sick kids not being able to reach the school nurse, parents sitting home not knowing their kids are locked down in a security threat, and last-minute schedule changes they hear about from their kids rather than the principal’s office.
“I’m the first one to admit that kids are disrupting class with YouTube, Snapchat, or whatever the hell they’re doing on their phones,” Stouffer says. “But the responsibility for teaching them how and when to use social media is the parents’.”
Charles Gelinas is a Harvard-trained attorney and member of the Westfield Board of Education. His children, aged 10 and 13, both go to public school in their town of 30,000 people, which consistently ranks among the wealthiest communities in New Jersey, as well as one of the safest.
Last year, Gelinas was named to a study commission, established by Governor Murphy, which is seeking ways to counter the negative effects of social media on New Jersey youth.
As a parent, Gelinas says, he’s struck by the appeal of the smartphone to young minds. Any meaningful ban in schools must have real teeth and recognize that kids will find a way around weak policies that simply order cell phones to be shut off or stored in a locker, he says.
“When the phone is off, we’re still thinking about it,” Gelinas said during an interview. “It sucks you back into wanting to check your notifications, check your social media profiles. So it’s disruptive even if it’s turned off and stowed away.”
“It’s just my opinion, but I think a ban should be something along the lines of, students can’t even bring the phone over the threshold of the school door.”
Like many parents across the country, Gelinas has read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, an NYU social psychologist who has built a huge following documenting the dangers social media poses to American youth. Haidt argues that parental fixation on safety has helped replace a healthy “play-based childhood” with a much riskier “phone-based childhood.”
The work of Haidt and other prominent researchers shows that the roots of childhood anxiety are manifold. Gelinas points out, for example, that even the strictest school ban can’t address the effects of digital media outside of school, on phenomena like cyberbullying or social isolation.
“There’s no easy answer here to arriving at an ideal policy,’’ he says. “Convincing parents to trust the schools when there are deep concerns about security will take a lot of patience. It’s got to be a long-term commitment to dialogue between schools and parents.”
Rosy Bagolie is the principal of East Newark School, a pre-K–8 public school for students living in the tiny Hudson County borough wedged between Harrison and Kearny. She’s also a first-term state assemblywoman who will have a big influence on any cell phone ban eventually passed, because she sponsored the legislation moving through the State House.
Her message to parents is, Have no fear. We’ve got you covered.
“I know a lot of people out there are worried about security issues; they’re worried about losing contact with their kids at school,” she says. “That’s not what this is all about.”
Bagolie’s bill calls on school districts to develop sensible cell phone policies only after working with parents and teachers. The core demand in the legislation requires only that phones be excluded from instructional time.
“How schools meet that demand is up to them,” Bagolie says.
In East Newark, any student with a cell phone must drop it in a basket at the start of the day. They get it back at the end of the day. If kids get sick or need to call home, they do it the old-fashioned way: They go to the office. “We’ve been doing it that way for five years,” Bagolie says. “It’s simple and it works.”
Public policy mavens like Tafshier Cosby of the National Parents Union, which advocates for disadvantaged families, say collaboration and common sense will be the key to any cell phone measure.
Extensive polling by Cosby’s group reveals that large majorities of parents in New Jersey and elsewhere want cell phone access to their kids at all times. But they’re willing to accept restrictions if they have a say in setting up the rules, she says.
“People living in large cities with big urban schools have a whole different set of needs than suburban families,” says Cosby, a grandmother of three who lives in Newark. “Please, just talk to everybody, including the tech bros. They created social media. They have a stake in fixing this.”
Don’t forget to talk to the kids as well, the experts say. “Most adults are just digital immigrants,” says Ginsburg of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. “The kids are digital natives. They use cell phones to communicate like we used pencils and notepaper.”
If there were ever a digital native, it is Chloe, a seventh-grader who attends public school in Montclair.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Chloe says, she had eight cell phone calls with friends, concocted a string of Instagram reels, and did some Snapchatting, all by 3 pm. At the age of 12, she aspires to a career as a YouTuber and internet influencer like MrBeast, who creates gimmicky game show-like content.
Adults trying to ban cell phones, Chloe says, need to understand middle-school realities only kids can best appreciate: what it feels like having to throw up when you’re on the way to the school nurse’s office; being a kid with diabetes who can’t use your cell phone to check your blood-sugar level; the comfort of dialing up Mom if you’re being bullied by other kids.
“When we come into school, we have to put our phone in a box,’’ Chloe says. “That’s a good thing because we’re not distracted in class. It’s a bad thing because sometimes we really want to talk to our parents.’’
Chloe’s mom, Michelle, is split on the issue, too. “I’m very much on the fence,” she says. “Kids should be able to focus on their schoolwork, but if something bad is happening, I’ve got to be able to hear Chloe’s voice saying, ‘I’m safe, Mom; I love you.’ That’s the most important thing.”
Jeff Pillets is a journalist based in Trenton who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2008.
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