Milton Students Speak Up as Phone Debate Continues

By Harris Felix ’27

“I chose to come to Milton because of the students’ lack of phone use.” Two years ago, when William Lara-McCannon ’28 was deciding between Milton and Nobles, he recalled the two contrasting revisit days as an important aspect of his decision. At Milton, he remembers fondly how his tour guide welcomed him into engaging conversation with friends, while at Nobles, his guide just played Among Us on his phone while McCannon sat and watched. “It sucked,” McCannon said.

Still, Milton is far from exempt from the global trend of rising average screen times. Amidst the rising prevalence of phone addiction in schools and broader debates about the role of phones in education, Milton formed a faculty committee in January to formally assess and devise a policy for phone usage at school. Mrs. Katherine Hamblet of the English Department shared that “at [Upper School Principal] Mrs. Stone’s request, about fifteen faculty members volunteered for a committee […] to assess the current use of cell phones on our campus and to propose several possible cell phone policies for Milton Academy.” This committee split into three subgroups to gather information about, respectively, faculty perspectives, student opinions, and policy at other schools. Hamblet said that the school has been inspired to act now because of the emergence of a slew of research tying phone use to mental and psychological harm, especially for adolescents whose brains are still developing. She also noted that “the Massachusetts legislature, following thirty-five other states, is finalizing a bill to forbid phone use in public schools ‘from bell to bell’ starting this fall.” Though the bill will not affect Milton directly, it still provides important context to consider.

In the video shown at Stable meetings on Monday, April 13, Head Monitors Pati Pogorzelska ’26 and Nehemiah Sanon ’26 emphasized that the committee is working towards a “phone policy”, rather than an outright ban. In the same video, Hamblet shared the aforementioned statistics on the harms of phone usage, stating, “Our current cellphone policy is widely ignored. We should either recommit to it or adapt to be more appropriate to our community.” The current rules around student phone usage in the handbook are, simply, that (1) students can only use phones in classrooms with a teacher’s permission; (2) students can not use phones during “assemblies, performances, or other gatherings” and (3) students who misuse their mobile devices may have them confiscated. Ambiguity lies in the term “gatherings”, and if an assembly is defined by its dedicated time slot, space, or both. Can students use phones while sitting on the bleachers before USP officially begins? Moreover, absent standardized enforcement, students undeniably flout these rules to some extent.

This year’s State of the Acad (SOTA) survey, which has not yet been published in full, revealed that, of the 448 responses collected through April 19, around 80% of students support phone-free classrooms during the school day and around 70% support phone-free assemblies. However, only 25% desire a phone-free Forbes, 20% a phone-free Library, and just 10% for phone-free zones in the Stu and hallways. Slightly more than 10% of students would support none of these six options as phone-free spaces.

Hamblet said that many students, in their responses to an April 13 form distributed by the phone committee, noted “that they would like to use their phones less and need help achieving that goal.” In particular, many Milton students who have lived without theirphones while at camp or on trips overwhelmingly enjoyed these experiences. Kaia Evans ’27, for instance, looks back fondly on her time without a phone at the Mountain School. She argued that Milton should not just remove phones, but also build a space where they are not needed logistically and foster a community in which retreating to one’s phone is not the norm.

Emmett Burghardt ’27 is one among the vast majority of students who would like to limit phone usage only during class and assemblies. He emphasized the value of “students learning to establish their own sense of self-control without the necessity of a faculty body imposing external control.” Even in classrooms and assemblies, he expressed that the standard should be set by student norms, driven especially by upperclassmen, rather than rules from the faculty. Similarly, Inés Velazquez-Correa ’27 does not support an expansive phone policy across most of campus. As an international student from Madrid, Spain, she describes how cutting off her phone usage between 8:05 and 3:30 would severely hinder communication with family. Calling on a computer, she says, is simply not always practical, and neither is waking up earlier before classes to make a call. Velazquez-Correa also worries that, if phones are banned in the Stu, for instance, boarding students will simply spend more time in their dorms on their phones, worsening the existing day/boarder divide. In a February opinion piece for The Milton Measure, Adair Johnson ’27 brought up similar access worries for students with urgent health needs.

On the other hand, Eli Berk ’26 wrote a letter to the phone committee advocating for stricter limitations on phone usage at school. The letter discussed the educational and socioemotional harms of smartphones and possible enforcement options for a ban. Twenty-nine students signed this letter in support of it. Other students, such as Zarak Ahmad ’27, also believe an expanded phone policy will foster connection and friendship. Ahmad explained that people used to be comfortable with being uncomfortable as they met new people, whereas now, “we can just hide behind our phones instead of stepping up and talking to someone new.” Ahmad pointed to the many incredible people comprising the Milton community and suggested that a time may come when we must choose to prioritize building connections between these individuals over other distractions. Ahmad supports not just phone-free assemblies and classrooms but also limiting phone usage in Forbes and the Library. The Milton Paper’s October 3 editorial called for a removal of phones from these three places as well; in a March 6 opinion column titled “On Being the Bad Guy: Phone-Free Zones Revisited,” Andria Laitadze ’26, Rhys Adams ’26, and HT Xue ’26 expressed a similar argument, citing shrinking attention spans and a decrease in meaningful conversation on the Milton campus.

On the topic of implementation, Lukas Caggiano ’26 believes that “if Milton is going to make a phone policy, it should be a full ban,” explaining that he finds an increase in his concentration when he deletes apps like social media. Still, Caggiano worries that students will simply spend an increased amount of time on their computers following phone restrictions. Meanwhile, Quentin Brown ’27 advocated for a warning system, similar to the existing system for class attendance, in which students would receive a warning after their first use of a phone during class or assembly, and then would receive further consequences after multiple infractions. Sanon recommended a system in which students, when they enter their first class, scan in using a tag, similar to the fob students currently use for dorm sign-outs, which would serve both as an attendance key and a limiter of phone functions. The tag would disable every app on the associated phone except for “essential apps” like phone, messages, and WhatsApp, leaving students free to contact family or call for help in an emergency. This limitation would then come out of effect by the end of the school day.

Additionally, Gustavo dos Reis ’26, Logan Eldaief ’26, Arsen Shymon ’27, Tyla Tsang ’28, and Phoebe Zhang ’26 wrote and directed a narrative journalism piece called Stop Talking About It for their Project Story class. The performance, which took place at 6:30pm in the Studio Theatre on Friday, April 24 during Arts Night, featured excerpts from twenty-four interviews, as well as The Milton Paper’s October 3 editorial.

Ultimately, many varying perspectives on the topic of phones are circulating around campus. According to Hamblet, the primary task of the faculty committee was to gather information, and they have, at least for now, completed this task, leaving the policy itself for Stone and Head of School Dr. Alixe Callen to design. Questions such as whether students who sit on the bleachers scrolling before USP are technically breaking the rules, and whether the school would be encroaching on student autonomy in implementing phone restrictions, remain unresolved. Soon, Milton will have to answer them.