“Parents, public health professionals, educators, and other stakeholders across the Commonwealth are expressing concerns over the alarming mental health crisis and chronic health conditions affecting adolescents, such as depression and anxiety, driven in part by extensive social media usage and widespread cell phone possession among children,” Youngkin’s guidance reads. “Cell-phone free education will significantly reduce the amount of time students can be on phones without parental supervision.”

Specifically, the Youngkin guidance calls for a “bell-to-bell” cellphone-free education environment. That means from the bell at the start of the school day, through lunch and recess, and until the final dismissal bell, all phones must be turned off and stored away from any possible student use.

Virginia Democrats oppose this bell-to-bell approach and have introduced their own legislation in the state legislature that only bans cellphone use in the classroom. Under the Democrats’ legislation, students would still be allowed to possess and use their cellphones at lunch, during recess, and in between classes.

Since his initial executive order in July, Youngkin took comments from over 6,000 Virginians, some of whom voiced this very exception. But as he explains in his order, the bell-to-bell comprehensive approach is the better one.

“Research shows that children receive more than 200 notifications a day on their smartphones and two-thirds of U.S. students report being distracted using digital devices,” Youngkin’s guidance reads. “It is essential that students have the opportunity to develop face-to-face conversations and develop critical in-person communication skills during unstructured school hours.”

Other parents voiced concerns about reaching their children during school emergencies, but Youngkin stressed that the proper response to this real and valid concern was to bring back resource officers to the schools and for schools to establish and communicate emergency response plans, which should include getting parents the information they need in a timely manner.

Despite some parental worries about the lack of cellphone access in emergency situations, it does appear that an overwhelming majority of parents prefer Youngkin’s bell-to-bell approach. According to a poll conducted by the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government, 69% of Virginia parents support a cellphone-free education, including restrictions during lunch and breaks between classes.

The data on the effect of cellphone use on students are alarming. A 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found that 60% of teenage girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, and nearly one-third of them said they had considered suicide, up 60% from a decade ago.

Other research has found that teenage depression doubled between 2011 and 2019, while emergency room admissions quadrupled between 2010 and 2021 among girls aged 10-14.

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And the link between deteriorating teen mental health and social media use is strong. Studies have found that the most frequent users of these social media applications are also the ones most likely to be depressed.

Under current law, Youngkin has no power to punish schools that don’t follow his guidance, and working with Democrats to create new legislation could give the policy more teeth. But the governor should not water down his policy without a fight. His bell-to-bell cellphone ban is the right approach. Virginia schools should follow it, as should the governors of other states.