For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, constant connectivity has been a rite of passage—opening the door to limitless information, but also near-constant distraction. Now, a growing number of states are betting that less screen time during the school day could pay off.
This academic year, Texas joined more than two dozen states in restricting cellphone use from bell to bell in public schools, an effort aimed at curbing social media distractions, improving focus, and reducing cyberbullying.
Just months in, early results suggest the shift is already changing student behavior. In the Dallas Independent School District—one of the largest in the country with more than 130,000 students—library book checkouts have jumped by over 200,000, a roughly 24% increase compared to last year, as of March 31.
“I started hearing, ‘Oh, I’m so bored. I can’t get on my phone after I do my work or during lunchtime,'” Hillcrest High School librarian Nina Canales told CBS News. “Once they lock into these stories, they don’t seem to care about their phones at all.”
John Kuhn, superintendent of the Abilene Independent School District, told The Texas Tribune that students were now spending more time having face-to-face conversations and even playing games like Uno at lunchtime—rather than staying glued to social media.
“I’ve had teachers telling me they’ve noticed students are doing a better job making eye contact and just engaging in conversation than they were before,” he added.
Critics of the restrictions point to safety concerns, including students’ ability to call 911 in an emergency, as well as the lack of a uniform, statewide approach.
Still, the behavior shifts come as Texas students continue to struggle with literacy. Data from the 2024 Nation’s Report Card show average reading scores for both fourth and eighth graders declined from 2022 levels, continuing a nationwide downward trend that began before the pandemic. Among U.S. states, Texas ranked 44th in eighth-grade reading performance.
Young people’s reading habits lag behind their parents—and it’s showing up in college and the workplace
The cellphone ban arrives amid a broader reckoning over how technology has reshaped young people’s relationship with reading. Gen Z’s reading habits still lag behind every other generation—Americans aged 18 to 29 read on average just 5.8 books in 2025, according to YouGov.
But personal cellphones aren’t the only devices drawing scrutiny.
Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that Gen Z is less cognitively capable than previous generations. That’s despite young people having unprecedented access to technology: schools across the country spent $30 billion on educational technology in 2024 alone.
But with many students using those devices to watch YouTube or play games rather than study, some U.S. school districts—and even entire countries—have begun pulling the plug on ed-tech altogether, returning to pencil-and-paper. This has been exacerbated by artificial intelligence, which has made it easier for students to cheat on assignments intended to expand their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
For many students, though, the reversal may be coming too late. A growing number of students have arrived at college less prepared than previous generations—some still struggling to read a full passage or sustain attention through a lecture.
“It’s not even an inability to critically think,” Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University, previously told Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.”
Not every young person fits that mold—many have flourished despite—or even because of—technology in the classroom. But for those who haven’t, the effects are proving hard to outrun. Some employers have already fired members of Gen Z shortly after bringing them on board, citing, in part, a lack of communication skills. Putting the phone away may be a start—but it likely won’t undo years of distraction overnight.
Even tech CEOs have admitted to restricting their kids’ screen time
Beyond Texas, many of the executives who built the internet’s most addictive platforms have quietly come to the same conclusion: unrestricted screen time for children may not be such a good idea.
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen has said that he doesn’t want his children to consume only short-form content, for fear they would end up with shorter attention spans.
“I think TikTok is entertainment, but it’s purely entertainment,” Chen said at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business last year. “It’s just for that moment. Just shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans.”
Billionaire Peter Thiel, who was an early investor in Facebook, said in 2024 that he only let his two children use screens for 90 minutes per week— a stark contrast to the national average. Children in the U.S. between the ages of 8 and 18 spend roughly 7.5 hours per day on screens, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Joe Gagliese, CEO of the social media marketing and creator agency Viral Nation, argued that most parents have little sense of how deep their children’s online lives run
“These parents don’t understand that their kids sent 5,000 TikToks or snaps in the last 6 days,” Gagliese told Fortune earlier this year. “They’re oblivious to the world in which their kids are living.”
Gagliese limits his own children—including his teenage daughter—to educational content only. He acknowledged the restrictions risk making her an outlier among her peers, but said he believes the risks of social media far outweigh its rewards.
“The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” he said.
