A new California law prohibits cellphone use in schools and within the classrooms from 2026. The cellphones would be required to be put away as soon as the class starts, the law said.

The new state law AB 272 passed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday proposed minimization of cellphone use in schools. It would be done to boost students’ mental health. The state cellphone ban in schools gives the time till 1 July 2026 for all the schools to implement policies reading cellphone ban in schools.

Newsom said, “We know that excessive smartphone use increases anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues– but we have the power to intervene. This new law will help students focus on academics, social development, and the world in front of them, not their screens when they’re in school”.

The new California law prohibits cellphone usage in classrooms but has an exception. The AB 272 law allows the use of phones in case of emergency. Teachers and school administrators can allow phones in perceived threat situations or when they think of some emergency conditions that become inevitable.

Although the use of AI in education is another issue that is debatable with limited phone time, the use of cellphones for a long screen time still raises eyebrows when it comes to students’ mental health.

Can schools ban cellphones?

With growing concerns about adolescent’s worsening mental health, cellphone use in schools has become a major concern. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the portion of schools in the pie chart that prohibited the use of cellphones for non-academic use increased from 66 percent in 2015 to 77 percent in 2020.

The efforts for state cellphone ban in schools have been observed since 2009 when 91 percent of public schools banned the use of cellphones. It drastically fell to 66 percent in 2015 before noticing a skyrocketing rise to 76 percent again in 2020-21. 

Research conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that 72 percent of high school teachers and 33 percent of middle school teachers declared cellphone use as a major distraction in class.

A Common Sense research report published that a whopping 97 percent of students use cellphones throughout the day with an average of 43 minutes.

In June, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Education voted to implement restrictions on cellphone use in school.

It had more than 429,000 students enrolled at the moment, who would be strictly banned from using cellphones in school throughout the day from January. The nation’s second-largest school district will witness a clear cellphone ban in school with no online presence on social media platforms throughout school hours.

Should cellphones be banned in schools?

The alarming concerns about teen’s mental health have asked for a ban on the wide-scale use of cellphones and social media. To restrict young people from phones and encourage them to socialize more in person throughout their school hours is one of the efforts that the government is making to reduce the future economic burden of teens’ mental health, hospital admissions, and suicide rates.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said kids under fourteen years should not be allowed to have social media accounts. It is public health advice that parents should seriously think about before it becomes a highlighted social dilemma regarding young people’s mental health in the coming years.

California law prohibits cellphone use

The new law, AB 272 builds upon the previous 2019 law which allowed but did not require the school districts to regulate cellphone use within the classrooms along with the use during school hours.

Seven states have passed laws banning cellphone use in schools. The states include Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia.

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AI in education is nothing new but having a human-like conversation in an app for personalized learning and wellness for students of all ages is ground-breaking. edYOU with three subscriptions has become public for the said purpose.

Dr. Michael Everest of edYOU technologies has made it possible for businesses and organizations to learn from this innovative approach. edYOU is integrated into top schools in the country like California Northstate University College of Medicine, Sierra Canyon School, and HCA teaching hospitals. edYOU with three subscriptions would start publically on 16th September 2024.  

Meet Michael Everest- the founder of edYOU

Dr. Michael Everest has two doctorate degrees and one is in education. He is using his learnings to provide ease in the said field. With his publishing research, he was able to demonstrate how Artificial Intelligence would improve learning and educational outcomes, for both students and teachers.

Since the reach of edYOU has stretched to almost all schools, higher education institutes, and universities, the three-tier subscriptions are offered to the users which they can access based on their suitability. With edYOU, AI companions would be available to any learner of any age.

The founder and CEO of edYOU Technologies said, “It has always been about us building something to help humanity. We decided edYOU needs to reach out to learners of all ages by offering something that society needs. A platform that combines learning and wellness so that the user can talk about how they feel while learning, circling to learning better by feeling better”.

How edYOU is making it happen

At present, edYOU is used by primary and high-grade students along with medical school students. The CEO is undertaking several strategic partnerships for edYOU to make it more accessible. An ongoing collaboration with Sierra Canyon is planned to improve life skills and educational results for the learners.

Everest has not stopped here. He has partnered with the American Society of Clinical Psycho-pharmacology and Oak Hill Hospital to make edYOU spread its wings for the learners over there and give extensive resources to the members for the said purpose.

AI in education but with safe use

Artificial Intelligence in education has enhanced the performance of learners worldwide. For example, Duolingo is a language learning app that presents the learners as well as the teachers with several ways to learn a new language. The pronunciation, words, and meanings could be learned through its speaking exercises for over 40 global languages. The schools that are teaching students foreign languages are integrating such AI-induced apps to learn languages at their own pace- but with AI’s help.

The same mission is upheld by Everest. However, he is aware of the concerns of the users about the use of Artificial Intelligence. They ask whether AI is safe. Will it replace their jobs?

The CEO explains it all

Everest explained that with new technologies, people always have doubts and fears regarding its implementation. He realized that teacher burnout is on the rise and there is no other viable way than to alleviate their work pressures with AI’s assistance.

He ensures that edYOU is designed in such a way that it would offer tools and ways to provide additional support, rather than taking away jobs. The primary focus of the app would remain the “wellness of educators and make their work more enjoyable”.

Everest further added that with carefully curated content and sophisticated algorithms, the teachers and learners should be satisfied that they are in safe hands. To ensure that they get a “safe face of AI” and make a transparent as well responsible use of AI, the CEO declared a patent for a Personal Ingestion Engine (PIE) and patented Intelligence Curation Engine (ICE).

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In the world of AI, a video game degree wouldn’t be something new. US universities are contemplating the possibility of offering such degrees that would let students complete majors in video games or esports.

The University of Delaware is one of the many colleges and universities that are open to offering new programs to embrace degrees in this multi-billion dollar field along with esports.

The story of Stephanie Gomez-Sanchez

Stephanie Gomez-Sanchez is one of those shining students at the said university who has aspirations and ambitions regarding her video game educational degree. She said she wanted to change the view of US politicians in their ongoing debate on immigrants by creating video game characters that would resemble her Mexican-American family.

The 23-year-old wants to tell the world that they are not ‘rapists’, as Donald Trump once said when he was talking about immigrants in the United States. She wants to turn her childhood love for video games into something useful for the US society, for which the University of Delaware is ready to help.

University’s first quota of video game degree

The university just rolled out its first quota including around two dozen students who earned their video game educational degree. Such degrees would also offer specialties in artificial intelligence, as early in high school years for American students which is expected to interest a great number of Gen-Z students.

The university also wants to handle the issue of the ever-dwindling population in colleges and universities in the country who hardly complete their majors. They believe that a shrinking pool of students might be due to the unavailability of degree subjects of their interest.

Phillip Penix-Tadsen’s views

The chairperson of the game studies and esports program at the University of Delaware, Phillip Penix-Tadsen is a video game lover and enjoys teaching it to his students. He was not a video game teacher at first but wrote a book in 2016 “Cultural Code: Video Games and Latin America”.

Alter, the university interpreted it as a signal for the introduction of the new program. Penix Tadsen said, “It was like there had been a cultural change. Every university member had heard of esports. That seemed to be a kind of buzzword”.

With the evolution of technology each coming day, the demands of new generations are changing, even in education. The same phenomenon is realized by the University of Texas at San Antonio this fall where a bachelor’s degree in ‘digital media influencing’ is now offered for the first time.

Chad Mahood’s views

An associate professor of the degree program, Chad Mahood, said that the new program would support students in better understanding the dynamics of social media and would help them and the collaborating businesses for the creation of an online brand in the future.

He said, “That influencer that you just saw on TikTok, they have an intuitive sense of this, and that’s why they’re doing well. If you don’t have that intuitive sense, we will help you”.

Future direction of the US universities with new programs

United States universities have come to know that students want degrees that provide the best ‘return on investment’. The students of today have a greater concern for the distinct ways schools and colleges could help them achieve that.

With college and university costs soaring high, the students have to work part-time alongside their degrees to meet the expenses. They have become increasingly stressed about the rising stakes in their education that later leaves them unprepared and sometimes, unemployed for six months or longer.

The arguments on how much a college degree should be training students for skills and specific jobs have been there from day one of every university in the world, said Donald Hossler, Indiana University Bloomington’s ex-vice chancellor of student enrollment services.

He further added that he is a staunch believer in liberal arts and universities are not thinking much about it. If students’ interests are changing then their enrolment preferences are too. He stressed that hiring the right and qualified faculty for teaching and relevant resources need to be arranged fast for the said purpose.

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