Andover has unveiled plans to create and implement a policy regulating cell phone usage across campus starting next year, according to a schoolwide email sent from the Dean of Students Office to the student body on October 3. To catalyze the transition, the school will establish a task force of both students and faculty members to develop a comprehensive cell phone policy.
Susan Esty, Dean of Students and Residential Life, and David Gardner, Assistant Dean of Students and Residential Life, outlined the logistics of the task force in the email. According to the announcement, the task force will evaluate Andover’s current cell phone policies and compare them to the policies of other schools, discuss existing research, and work through the summer of 2025 to finalize and implement the policy.
“[This task force] will play a crucial role in shaping the future of cell phone usage at Andover and in supporting the growth, health, learning, and happiness of our entire Big Blue community,” wrote Esty and Gardner in the schoolwide email.
Although there is currently no schoolwide cell phone policy at Andover, many other schools have implemented systems to reduce screen usage throughout the school day. Deerfield Academy adopted a policy in 2022 that requires students to leave their phones in their dorms from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on weekdays. Similarly, Hotchkiss banned cell phone usage in classrooms, the dining hall, and community gatherings beginning fall of 2023.
Some instructors enforce their own regulations in the classroom to minimize distractions and improve learning. M.C. Post, Teaching Fellow in History, shared how phones can disrupt focus, especially in discussion-based classes. They currently implement a system where students keep their phones at the door during class.
“I’m pretty proximate to a student age, just because I graduated college almost two years ago, and I know how distracting phones can be when I was a student. I know that students don’t want to be distracted, but it’s just so easy to go on your phone when you have it right there, especially for a discussion-based class. The quality of education is better when phones aren’t using people’s attention. I think just removing that all the way from students, nine to five… allows them to be more present,” said Post.
Students will play an active role in forming the new policy as members of the task force. Aly Blakeney, Instructor in History and Economics, spoke on the value of having student voices inform the new policy, and her hopes for how the task force will continue to operate with this value in mind.
“It’s incredibly important to have student voices because we are not Generation Z. Campus adults, by definition, are not part of Gen Z. [Students] are the ones who know exactly where the trigger points are, what are the hard spots, in what ways does technology help you, and what does it hinders. It very much shouldn’t be a top-down decision. I don’t think the administration is taking that [path] to begin with, they’re doing very well at encouraging a grassroots holistic evaluation, but it’s incredibly important that we get a diversity of voices, both student and adult, on that committee,” said Blakeney.
The short application sent out to students asks why they personally want to join the task force. Jasjit Hargun ’27 spoke on why he chose to apply and his personal goals for the task force.
“It was the talk about super strict restrictions on phone usage, [banning phones from 8:00 a.m. until 5 p.m.], that motivated me to join because I don’t think that’s the way to go. The phone task force is marketed towards people who want to limit phone usage, and I think if we just have those people, it’s not going to be a good solution or a solution that reflects what the student body wants,” said Hargun.
Hargun continued, “I’m hoping to be a moderating influence, where they don’t go super extreme on the phone policy but it’s not like I’m going to stop all restrictions, there definitely should be some. I want to keep things reasonable.”
According to Blakeney, phone policies are often less effective because students have access to their laptops, which display the same notifications a phone would. Blakeney noted that the school should implement a technology policy as opposed to a cell phone policy and suggested some ideas.
“Though I think cell phones are a really good place to start, it’s a symptom of a much larger problem. We need to address technology with a capital T… I would love to see something like GoGuardian implemented… It allows teachers to set times when their classes meet where it locks the browser and or records everything that the student is doing, so if I get an email later that so-and-so doesn’t understand the concept, I can look at GoGuardian and be like, ‘Oh, that’s so funny, because you were liking cat memes for the past thirty minutes of class.’ It holds people responsible without being too creepy [and] too invasive.”
Similarly, John Bird, Instructor in English, spoke on the challenge of enforcement and of affecting cell phone usage outside of the classroom.
“I don’t think you should be looking at screens before you go to bed, but how do we enforce that? We can enforce [not having] them in class, but the moment you get it back, you’re going to look at it again. That’s just life. As much as possible, what we should be promoting is the idea that you have an opportunity to actually become a person, and that outsourcing your personhood to a phone is actually not good for you. That’s just something we have to keep telling you guys, and hope you listen,” said Bird.
