On April 9th The Illinois General Assembly, our representatives, voted on a new education bill that passed 55-0, This new Bill SB2427 will implement a state issued rule on the use of Phones within school.
SB2427 which was filed by Senator Cristina Castro on February 7th tackles the argument of Cellular Devices in use while in the classroom. There has been a recent surge in distractions caused by cell phones, from social media to mobile games. Students have been wasting classroom time because of the immediate attention that phones bring. I ask you reader: How much time do you spend on your phone? According to research done by The University of Maine the average time spent on phone usage daily is 2 hours and 24 minutes. If people are willingly spending hours of their free time on their phones, can you imagine what a bored teenager would do during school hours?
According to the American Psychology Association the average time a minor spends on their phone is double that of the previous statistic at 4 hours 50 minutes being the average time. Honestly, as a teenager this shocks me. One fourth of my contemporaries & classmates’ day is being spent on their phone. If I was a politician, especially if I specialized in Education and the care of our younger generations I would be trying my hardest to lower that average time too.
Senate Bill 2427 specifically calls for the phones to be put away and banned during “instructional time” aka when the teacher is teaching. “prohibits a student from using a wireless communication device during instructional time, except as otherwise provided” – SB2427. This bill does not ban students from bringing their phones to school, rather its goal is trying to bring more focus on the importance of using classroom time without the possibility of distraction from technology like cell phones. Of course each school district will have its different rules and guidelines on how this bill is implemented, but you can probably assume that more and more teachers will start to use a “Phone Caddy” which is just pockets of space at the front that the student can put their phones into at the entrance of the classroom.
While this Bill has not passed the house yet, its 55 to zero vote in the senate shows a full support of the bill on both sides. There’s a definite possibility that we would see this bill be implemented in the 26-27 school year. As of April 11th the house had its first hearing about the bill which then it’s going to go through a ring of different committees and hopefully by the third hearing there will be a vote for the bill.
Illinois isn’t the first state to call for something like this. In 2023 The Florida legislature enacted an almost verbatim of this current bill banning phones during instructional hours for the 24-25 school year. Now in 2025, Florida lawmakers want to take it a step further and ban phones as a whole for the whole school day rather than just during “instructional time”. I can say with full confidence that Florida Teenagers will find every possible way to sneak their phones into school. I really dont think it’s realistic to ban phones as a whole, it’s just not feasible. Teenagers and Phones are just too interlinked, Social Media has become an innate social construct that we use in our everyday lives.
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Honestly I hope that this Bill will bring some results . I personally believe that I spend too much time on my phone and I know for a fact that I use my phone way less than most of the people that I know. But what do you think? Will this Bill actually keep teenagers off their phones? or are High School Students too resilient for these rules to stop them?
