District leaders link early smartphone access to higher mental-health risks and lower academic performance

Bernards Township School District leaders told a community forum that rising device use among children is tied to mental-health and academic harms and outlined evidence the district has compiled.

Miss Fox, identified in the presentation as a district leader, said that "children who receive smartphones fairly early have a 10% increase in momentum health leaning towards depression," and that by middle school there is a substantially higher risk of mental-health crises among students who had early, unfiltered access. She also cited a study she referred to as from the "Journal of American Medicine," which the presentation summarized as showing that "for every hour of leisure screen time before the age of eight, there's a 10% drop in likelihood of the student achieving higher academic levels in grade three in reading and math." The presenters stated these figures as correlational and framed them as part of the rationale for limiting device exposure.

Dr. Glas said teachers and administrators are seeing shorter attention spans, increased multitasking and fewer face-to-face social interactions. He described school-level changes already in place—such as requiring phones to be off and kept in backpacks or lockers at the middle and high school levels—and said teachers reported a noticeable increase in in-person conversation and calmer lunches since those policies were implemented.

Speakers acknowledged limits to the district’s authority to control home device use and urged partnership with families. They emphasized the district’s intent to use monitoring data and classroom observation to guide policy rather than to criminalize or stigmatize families.

The session did not include a board vote; officials presented research, district observations and operational policy changes and invited further community discussion.