Technology — and particularly smartphones — has wormed its way into the pockets of kids worldwide, and recent research has shown that anxiety in children is increasing dramatically. Dunphey, who is the principal at St. Patrick Catholic School in Brighton, says the school made the decision to ban all cell phones on school property a few years ago. That decision, she and other St. Patrick’s staff say, has allowed a dramatic re-focusing for the school’s students.

“We were having conversations as a staff about what is in the best interest of students,” she says. “We talked about learning, being in relationship, and growing in relationship with each other, and we found the phones a significant distraction.”

Dr. Karen Villa, a clinical neuropsychologist in Brighton and parishioner at St. Patrick’s, says that during puberty, the brain is at one of its most “plastic” stages, which means whatever is introduced during that time will form connections in the brain that last.

“The repetitive experiences that children have during that time can get hardwired in,” she says. “If you hardwire in attention fragmentation and disconnect from relationships, that can be a huge problem moving forward.”

Villa and Sister John Dominic Rasmussen, OP are the authors of Raised in Grace: Made for Wholeness and travel around the country speaking to parents, teachers, and diocesian groups about the dangers of technological addiction.

“Cell phones are experience-blockers,” she says. “They take children out of play and out of relationship and they block the experience of developing new skills and abilities.”

A study coming out of the U.K. has found that children perform 13 percent to 20 percent better on tests when their schools ban cell phone usage at school completely, she adds.

At St. Patrick’s, rather than try to make rules about when and where in the K-8 school phones could be allowed, the staff decided to prohibit them on the campus outright, Dunphey says.

“I anticipated getting more pushback than we did,” she says. “I got far more responses from parents saying, ‘Thank you,’ because I think parents realize it’s a battle for them to navigate. Most of our families found it refreshing.”

Dunphey and several of St. Patrick’s teachers say students can have the school office call a parent, and special accommodations can be made for students if necessary. There are landline phones in each classroom in case of emergency, but no students can have cell phones — not even in their backpacks or lockers.

According to teachers, the lack of phones in classrooms and hallways at St. Patrick’s makes for a calmer, more focused environment.

“It made a real difference,” says Tony Moskus, who teaches grades 7-8. “We don’t have kids hanging out at lockers coming in late to class. It just freed everybody up and made it a school, instead of ‘everyday life,’ where everyone is thinking about their phone.”

While no one can stop discussion about what happens on social media during non-school hours from bleeding into the classroom from time to time, Moskus says, keeping the devices off school property greatly reduces discussion about “who said what online” during the school day.

Another teacher, Cheryl Elmer, has been in education for 35 years, but this is her first year at St. Patrick’s. She used to work at a public high school, where rules about cell phones were at the teacher’s discretion, which led to inconsistent policies and distracted students. “I have not seen one phone since I’ve gotten here,” she says. “I think the students interact more with each other and the interactions are more organic.”

In a March 2024 article in The Detroit Free Press, The Anxious Generation author Jonathan Haidt writes that children who regularly use smartphones are less likely to interact with peers face to face, more likely to suffer from sleep deprivation, be less able to focus for long lengths of time, and become addicted to the devices.

Villa says Haidt’s research and book are helping parents nationwide to wake up to the dangers of early and heavy smartphone use.

“Before Haidt’s book we couldn’t say for sure what was going on,” Villa says. “People threw up their hands and turned a blind eye to the effects. “With his scholarship, we can say pretty definitively there’s a problem.”

The teachers at St. Patrick say they hope the school’s no-tolerance policy allows for deeper learning to take place.

“To me, as an educator and a parent there is no other way,” says grade 5 teacher Patricia ‘P.J.’ O’Leary. They cannot have a place in a school building if you want true, authentic learning happening.”

Part of any education, but particularly a Catholic education, is to help children develop in more ways than just academically, O’Leary says.

“My job every day is to educate the whole child, mind, body, and spirit,” she says. “Every child needs to know their value and their worth as a child of God, and truly know it to their core. Knowing that is knowing who you are.”

Many young people, she argues, are forming their self-image based on what they see in apps like TikTok.

“If you’re getting who you are from TikTok, that’s sad,” she says. “It does really train your brain to think who you are is whoever TikTok tells you are. When you know the truth and know you’re a child of God — that is the complete opposite.”

Dunphey said the policy puts everyone on equal footing.

“Our kids ultimately feel freedom from it,” she says. “We talk about how culture defines our identity and what we know about our identity in Christ.”