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“I Don’t Know What Else to Do.”
The true state of phone addiction among America’s youth…and everyone, for that matter
On May 14, 2025, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey did the unthinkable, signing an extremist and hardline policy into law. Twenty states have passed similar extremist legislation, changing life as we know it in America.
What did she do?
She banned phones in K-12 schools.
As a nod to the reality that the FOCUS Act demands of our students, Governor Ivy took her own phone and placed it into a pouch to symbolize what every child and teenager would be forced to do every school day morning.
Ever since the beginning of the semester in August, students have expressed their complaints and grievances about the significant changes to the way they approach their school day. While teachers, particularly in high schools where most students have phones, had previously attempted to have students keep their phones away, energy would often wane. Over the year, enforcement would come to a near screeching halt, and out the phones would come.
On the rare occasion that enforcement was present, students would sit in the back with phones hidden under their desks, spend an egregious amount of time in the backroom on their phones, or simply go on their…
