In August 2025, a new law went into effect across New York State, requiring all public schools to ban personal cell phone use during the school day. For many, this may feel like a revolutionary moment. But for those of us who’ve been in the trenches of education for decades, balancing the marvels of innovation with the mayhem of distraction, it feels more like a paradoxical long-overdue pendulum swing, during mobile technology’s grandest renaissance.
And so, this is a direct and earnest invitation to Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Sam Altman; we need you at the table. Not as figureheads of innovation, but as collaborative problem-solvers. Let’s talk about the role you can play in a digital detox that’s not anti-technology, but pro-human.
A Problem You Helped Build (But Can Help Solve)
Let’s be honest. The very companies that have built the tools reshaping society are also, inadvertently, shaping the disarray in our classrooms. Our children are not addicted to, nor drawn to the access of knowledge, they’re addicted to notifications. They’re scrolling in class, snapping in bathrooms, streaming during lunch, and spiraling after school under the weight of impossible social expectations filtered through curated highlight reels.
The same phones that connect them to the world are disconnecting them from themselves, their peers, and their purpose.
And yet, I’m not here to throw stones, or smartphones, from my chalk-lined, Corning Gorilla Glass house. I’m no technophobe. Quite the opposite. Staten Island Technical High School was founded in the mid-1980s with a mission to prepare students for the rapidly accelerating technological era we now call the present. I’m not only an alumnus and proud product of that vision, I’m its principal. And with the future quite literally at our fingertips, we’ve embraced and operationalized a wide range of Ed-Tech innovations: from digital learning and blended instruction to the bold frontier of AI integration. But we’ve also recognized what’s been lost along the way. That’s why we created a mandatory course called Talknology, yes, you read that right – to deliberately restore human-to-human dialogue, face-to-face communication, and the social-emotional skills that have been eroding faster than a Snap streak.
We’re not being mandated to ban phones because we fear the future. We’re banning phones because we believe in a better one.
At the same time, it’s just as imperative that we, collectively, begin the hard but necessary work of reimagining how to reintroduce the mobile phone into the classroom equation, appropriately, productively, and above all, intentionally. Much like a mathematics or science teacher who judiciously permits a scientific or graphing calculator, not as a crutch, but as a calibrated tool, we must reframe the phone, tablet, or laptop not as a digital distraction, but as a dynamic instrument of learning. Somewhere along the way, the use of these devices as purposeful portals; to research, to organization, to creativity – lost its bearings. It’s time we teach their proper use, not as accidental habits, but as essential habits of mind. This is no longer optional. It’s fundamental, not just to academic success, but to social navigation, family dynamics, and the future of work.
Location, Location, Liberation
Imagine if Apple and Google collaborated on a default “school mode” – a time-based, location-aware digital environment that gracefully limits or eliminates access to non-educational content during school hours. It’s not Big Brother. It’s Smart Uncle. It’s the kind of nudge students need, and the kind of partnership schools (and parents should) crave.
Imagine if OpenAI, with all its brilliance, helped develop tools that elevate voice, collaboration, and original thinking, without displacing the fundamental value of silence, reflection, and authentic dialogue.
The tools exist. The question is, will you help us use them to create learning environments where focus is reclaimed, empathy is reborn, and children are once again present?
From Big Tech to Big Ally
To be clear, this isn’t a tech-shaming article. It’s a call to action. It’s a call to leadership.
Tim, Sundar, Sam, your platforms are not just ubiquitous; they’re formative. You have the power to do what no school policy can do alone: shift the culture. Send a message that screen time should be purposeful, not compulsive. That school is sacred time. That face-to-face isn’t a relic of the past, but a requirement for the future.
Educators, parents, psychologists, and now legislators have sounded the alarm. We’re not asking you to be the firefighter, we’re asking you to help prevent the blaze.
Let’s Build the Solution Together
Let’s convene. Let’s innovate. Let’s create a national model for digital well-being in schools, because the current model isn’t just broken, it’s breaking our kids.
This law in New York? It’s not a finish line. It’s a starting point. And we need the most powerful tools, minds, and institutions aligned if we want to get this right.
In short, it’s time to put the “smart” back in smartphones, and the humanity back in education.
So let’s talk. Face to face. No phones. Just people.
Sincerely,
Mark Erlenwein
Principal, Staten Island Technical High School
Alumnus, Advocate, and Proud Member of the Pro-Digital Pro-Analog Resistance
MarkErlenwein.com 