WHY DFS Legislation Package?
The Distraction-Free Schools Model Legislation Package aims to protect students, empower educators, and ensure every classroom tool—digital or traditional—serves a single purpose: helping students learn safely and effectively.
DIGITAL PRODUCTS IN SCHOOLS
THE PROBLEM:
Online and digital products marketed to schools often provide unsafe, ineffective, or inappropriate experiences and collect and share student data without appropriate consent.
A lack of regulation has led to:
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Technology companies marketing commercial products as “educational” with no accountability.
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Collection and monetization of student data for non-educational purposes.
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Platforms with advertising, gamification, AI, chat features, and addictive design features in classrooms.
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Parents being excluded from decisions about their child’s digital exposure.
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Insufficient privacy and safety protections in school technology.
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Lower math and reading scores on standardized tests such as PISA and NAEP.
PROPOSED SOLUTION:
Schools that protect our children’s minds, attention, and childhood by prioritizing:
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Human connection over algorithmic tracking.
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Deep learning over endless screen time.
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Tactile learning over constant stimulation
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Children over technology.
The Problem:
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Social media and gaming apps are addictive by design. They disrupt social development, encourage compulsive use, and expose students to harmful content.
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Students report rising levels of anxiety, depression, bullying, and academic distraction linked to digital overuse.
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Schools unintentionally normalize these apps when they allow or rely on them for communication or activities.
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No child should be forced to have a phone or a social media app because their school or any extracurricular activity requires it.
School's Obligation: Ensure that schools are not encouraging social media use during or after the instructional day:
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Ban school-related communication via social media. Schools, employees, and volunteers cannot use social media to contact students, including to share practice and game times.
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Keep social media and gaming apps out of the school day. Students should not be allowed to access social media or gaming apps on personal or school-issued devices during the school day or supervised school activities (field trips, sports, dances, etc.).
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Support digital literacy.
Schools are encouraged to integrate age-appropriate lessons on safe, responsible, and healthy use of digital media.
SOCIAL MEDIA HARM
Related Resource Pages:
Children learn best in an environment where they feel safe and are free from constant distractions.
The introduction of phones and other personal devices in school environments has disrupted children's academic and social development. Teachers have witnessed the impact on student focus and learning firsthand. A National Education Association poll found that 83% of teachers support banning all-day phone use. https://www.nea.org/resource-library/impact-social-media-and-personal-devices-mental-health
When schools implement bell-to-bell phone- and personal device-free environments, students thrive (improvements in academics, mental health, and social cohesion). This leads to a safer school environment - a break from cyberbullying and other online harm- which will improve children’s mental health and social development and will allow school leaders/administrators/staff more time to focus on more important work.
PHONES IN SCHOOLS
In the book, Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch provide data showing how mental health disorders began to rise at record rates when social media began to be widely used by children.
