Smartphones and social media platforms are coming under just scrutiny for the severe damage to the mental health of young Americans. Teenagers spend roughly nine hours a day in front of screens—five of those hours are devoted to using social media. In the past decade, symptoms of depression doubled among teenagers. The adolescence of Gen Z is much different from the adolescent years of prior generations. The ubiquity of smartphones has fundamentally altered the way younger people interact with the world and each other, often removing chance encounters, serendipity, and the awe of discovery.

I have watched these technologies make students anxious over the years with the algorithms promoting extreme political views and unending comparisons about looks, wealth, and status. While we need to limit the exposure to smartphones among younger people and keep these devices out of schools, this technology has done something positive for me as a teacher; smartphones have forced me to up my own teaching game. 

I vividly remember numerous undergraduate and graduate seminars as a student – they were often terrible. It was clear that faculty were often unhappy to be teaching; they did not prepare and appeared to be disinterested and uninspired to be in front of a group of students. Despite my enthusiasm to learn, the classes were often boring, slow, and I had no phone or digital distractions that could have helped pass the time in these seminars.

When I became a professor, and when smartphones became commonplace among students, I embraced the constant connectivity. I encouraged students to look things up during class figuring that I could not possibly stop students from searching for answers online; I figured I should embrace it. This proved to be a net positive. The real-time connectivity opened up a door for me to help teach students about discerning credible evidence, how to evaluate arguments, how to search for bias, and how to think about data and empirical proof.

I recognized that with phones in my student’s hands, I would be contending for their attention and I embraced the challenge of making my classes dynamic enough that my students would still want to focus on our class together. I prepared intensely for our sessions and tried to be the exact opposite of my own past experiences. This approach worked for a period but was destined to fail as I could not push back the allure of the algorithms. Social media alerts and constant contact from friends and networks crept in and I asked a few years ago that students put their phones away.

Without phones in my classes, the results have been remarkable.

At first, students fight the urge to scroll and their discomfort is quite visible. By the third class session, however, students generally accept that messages and alerts will have to wait. I reinforce that I am not trying to make them miserable but remind them that they are in class with me to learn. And if we are going to really think, analyze, and absorb, we have to focus and dig into complicated ideas that take time to unpack—a challenge for a generation that has seen their attention spans dwindle.  

The students eventually accept this premise and are amazed by how time flies when we are all present, sitting at the same table, and engaged in vibrant dialogue about how to make sense of history, social dynamics, and questions about why the world happens to be the way it is. Our discussions and debates are not being constantly interrupted and the students are present for each other – there are no distractions and ideas are truly being investigated to everyone’s benefit.

Students who initially resist shutting down their devices often tell me how refreshing and pleasant my seminars are for them because they are the few hours during the week when they actually feel human and connect to others. They are not being barraged by a constant stream of messages, alerts, and stimuli and have a moment to look their peers in their eyes and think about something bigger than the minutiae that habitually pops up on their phones. 

I know that I am fighting against smartphones and their deeply addictive ecosystems. Because of this awful reality and I am competing for attention, I work incredibly hard to plan out syllabi and classes that are captivating and I want my own students to know that I am happy to be in the room with them, exploring a variety of work together to make sense of the world. Some seminars work out better than others, but what has motivated much of my teaching is to showcase its value to students and provide an educational experience that makes it worth putting down one’s phone for a few hours a week.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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