IT'S A HIGHER CALLING
School bans smartphones — students happier than ever
When the 65 highschoolers who attend Buxton boarding school in Williamstown, Mass., resumed in-person learning in fall 2020, Head of School Peter Beck noticed that the kids had lost something important.
After months of remote learning due to the pandemic, kids no longer knew how to interact with one another.
“The students had completely forgotten the basics of face-to-face interaction,” Beck, 33, told The Post. “They had spent so much time glued to their smartphones.”
A zombie-like focus on screens had been a rising issue for pupils even before the global health crisis, but post-quarantine, it was even worse, the administrator said.
“The students struggled to converse with one another, the ability to be with or sit with other people was gone,” Beck said.
“Everybody’s attention was being sucked into their online lives — text messages, emails and social media apps — on their phones,” added Beck, a native New Yorker who grew up on the Upper East Side.
So this spring, Beck, alongside Buxton’s tightknit staff of 15, decided to take drastic measures: They issued a ban on all smartphones.
‘Thriving’ kids
The institution-wide embargo prohibits both students and staffers from having their iPhones and Androids on the school’s 114-acre campus. It took effect at the beginning of the academic year in September, and, thus far, it’s been an overwhelming success.
“The students are thriving. They have adjusted so well to the change,” Beck said.
Of course, teens — and even some adults — were initially none too thrilled about ditching gadgets. One outraged family even withdrew their child from the school.
“Some students were really scared,” Beck said. “They couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not have this device that has become a crucial part of every second of their lives.”
Pupils who live nearby must leave their phones at home, while those who board have had their devices locked away in the school coordinator’s office until the end of the semester. But kids aren’t totally disconnected.
Each member of the Buxton community was gifted a Light Phone, a sleek gadget with minimal features made by a Brooklyn company.
Less social media
Light Phones can make and receive calls and rudimentary texts but, per its website, it “will never have social media, clickbait news, email, an Internet browser, or any other anxiety-inducing infinite feed.” (Students can still access social media on desktop computers at the end of the school day.)
The ban has had a positive impact on both academic and social life.
“Everyone’s ability to be present has gone way up, and it helps everything,” Beck said. “They’re spending more time doing academic work, creatively expressing themselves through art, getting to know one another and themselves.”
While the Light Phone does allow the students to text, Buxton’s Senior Director Franny ShukerHaines said it seems less appealing to do on the phone, which has a matte screen and tiny keyboard. Kids no longer seem to be sneaking away to send digital messages.
“One of our most veteran teachers noticed that kids are asking to go to the bathroom less often,” said Shuker-Haines, noting that some students find the Light Phone’s keyboard challenging to use. “Our theory is that they would go to the bathroom to text and check TikTok or whatever.”
Neither Shuker-Haines nor Beck are worried that the benefits of their experiment will be lost on the student body during winter break.
“The world is always going to have technology, and we’re not trying to completely take that away from our students,” Beck said. “We just want them to experience being present, here on campus and back at home, without the constant dinging of their phones.”