The 2025-26 school year is going to look different for the 2 million students and 200,000 teachers that make up New York's K-12 classrooms. None of them, by law, will have their phones on them.
In May, Governor Kathy Hochul passed the Distraction Free Schools Initiative as part of the state's 2026 budget, a law mandating an end to "unsanctioned use of smartphones and other internet-enabled personal devices" in schools. It asks districts to formulate personalized plans for keeping students off devices from the moment they enter campuses to the last school bell, an increasingly popular rule known as a bell-to-bell exclusion policy, one that requires just that parents have the means to communicate with their children. Those plans, aided by a $13.5 million allotment set aside for screen-free infrastructure, are due on the governor's desk by August 1.
There will be, understandably, a major adjustment period for students, teachers, and even parents who have battled the growing impact of phones on young people. Screen-free advocates are doing all that they can to ensure New York's mandate — the largest of its kind across the country — will be successful. And they aren't just a group of Luddite Boomers crying out against technology. These are young digital natives, political activists, and, under a new initiative, the teens themselves.
There's no better playground for this than New York City, but policy alone is not enough.
New York's new Teen Tech Council
Rather than building the state's phone ban from the top-down, New York's phone-free movement is taking a page out of the book of digital wellness advocates, bringing the primary stakeholders — teens and teachers — directly into the offices of policy makers. Announced today, New York will be pioneering a first-of-its-kind Teen Tech Council, an advocacy program dedicated to training and empowering teens to ensure phone bans stick. In return, teens get the ear of the governor herself.
"I listened to how adults were speaking about the new bell-to-bell distraction-free policy, and I felt like so much of the discussion was asking how we can bring this to life, but with no young people on the team," explained Larissa May, founder of digital wellness organization #HalfTheStory and creator and shepherd of the new Teen Tech Council. Galvanized by the apparent no-questions-asked buy-in from bipartisan leaders pushing social media and Big Tech regulation, May pitched the idea of turning her organization's annual training program, Digital Civics Academy, into a statewide initiative.
"If you want New York to be the leader, we need to bring teens to the table, and we need to create a new culture, going from screen fear to screen-free fun," said May. "There's no better playground for this than New York City, but policy alone is not enough. Implementation requires empowerment of young people and actually putting their solutions at the center."
The Teen Tech Council is like an anti-Silicon Valley ideas generator. Over the next year, the council will bring in 750 members (one student per New York school district) who will be an intermediate between the state's goals and the lived reality of students. They'll receive training, including how to apply for grants to strengthen phone-free policies, and get access to #HalfTheStory's Social Media U, a digital emotional resilience program that is already in several New York state schools. May and her collaborators will bridge the gaps between those activations, looking ahead for collaborative opportunities with tech players, brands (May mentioned several major phone companies, including Verizon), and other state governments. And real time feedback from students will be sent up through the grapevine to power holders.
The policy is already implemented, but we can find ways to make it a more adaptable and comfortable transition for kids.
It may be beneficial to conceptualize the council like ambassadors, said former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, a mentor and partner for the council who has been vocally against the unfettered reach of Big Tech. "Young people are digital natives. They have a much better idea than my generation, or even their parent's generation, about what the stakes are — what is both positive and negative about their interaction with technology," Clinton told Mashable. Teens on the frontline of the internet crisis are now getting the mic, even if it feels a little too late. "I think it is a timing issue," said Clinton. "We had to have enough experience in order to understand what we were up against and what the consequences of screen addiction were for young people."
Clinton and Governor Hochul were present in the Manhattan headquarters of the Clinton Foundation ahead of the council's launch, the inaugural board meeting of a new wave of screen-free leaders — who May calls "little me's" — who sat elbow-to-elbow around a long conference desk scattered with polaroid photos and notebooks. No phones in sight. More than 20 high school students were there representing districts around the state, all with different demographics and demands, some members of #HalfTheStory's Digital Civics Academy and others part of organizational partners like Girls Inc. They provided comments and case studies from their schools, and brought up ideas for how people with power and money could get teens on board, from screen free social events to the revival of Y2K culture icons like digital cameras, computer labs, and student life centers.
The meeting was filled with an upbeat, nervous energy, a sense of respect for the new ground the leaders and council members felt they were striking. Clinton and Hochul swapped stories of a formerly analogue world as teens expressed new, modern demands. But even among this group of anti-screen advocates, the necessity and desire for tech was palpable.
"It is going to cause kids to be uncomfortable, because we are a generation who grew up on it. We are accustomed to technology," said 16-year-old council member Olivia. "The policy is already implemented, but we can find ways to make it a more adaptable and comfortable transition for kids. We all have common goals." And that's what the council intends to do, along with ushering in a new cultural movement that, like a Trojan Horse, may instill better screen habits through youth-led action.
The nationwide push for phone bans
"We want to create a blueprint, a package, so that any state that wants to pass a package of policies around big tech can have a roadmap for how to engage young people," explained May. Phone and/ or social media bans have swept across the country. Including New York, 14 states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia — have bans in place. Nearly every other state has previously proposed a ban on phones or piloted bell-to-bell exclusion policies. Amid this trend, May thinks leaders may be missing a crucial point: They won't work if they don't sound fun. "The next generation knows more about technology than any person who is sitting in office," she said. "We need to be able to bridge that gap to design a better future together." Phone bans, a phrase that all of the council members eschew in favor of "screen free," have to be introduced as an opportunity to gain something new, not lose something good.
Hochul is one among many policy makers who have got their sites trained on Big Tech, including passing regulation that attempts to reign in social media algorithms, advertising, and online app marketplaces that target young people. Social media giants and Big Tech's investors have, paradoxically, championed social media regulation and pushed back against stronger legislation. Meanwhile, experts and advocates, including the Surgeon General and American Psychological Association, have sounded the alarm on teens' access to social media and new technology like chatbots. Such burgeoning tech, including generative AI and agentic AI tools, pose even more questions for the next generation of learners.
"My very simple view of my job is to put families first and do whatever I can to support them," Hochul told Mashable. "As a mother, I see what is happening to our teenagers, to our young children, because of the influences of social media. Companies have monetized children's mental health. I believe what we did last year, standing up to social media companies and demanding that they unleash our children, that they liberate them from their clutches during the day, will make real progress."
When asked if vocal teens like those in the adjoining room could strengthen the nationwide push for regulation, Clinton answered emphatically: "One hundred percent. When we were talking with the governor and other experts who have studied the impact of technology on kids, we quickly came to the conclusion that we were not going to come up with all the answers by any means. We needed to start engaging with young people and give them a platform, which is what our Teen Tech Council will do."
Starting today, teens can apply (or be nominated for) New York's Teen Tech Council.
