If you hear something coming from the general direction of Pine Bush, it just might be the sound of parents raising their hackles. Back on May 7, Pine Bush Central School District Superintendent Brian Dunn went to a controversial place when he suggested that a ban on smartphones in school might be a good idea.

As we reported last week, Dunn, who has not committed to supporting such a ban, has focused on the repercussions of smartphone use this school year, saying it goes “hand in hand with his goal of improving student culture, making it less hostile and more in tune with learning.” In February, the district hosted a talk by therapist and author Thomas Kersting, who told the school community “that time spent riveted to phones stunts social skills, isolates family members, hinders self-awareness and can even rewire young brains.”

Kersting is far from alone in this sentiment. From the halls of Congress, which just enacted a TikTok ban, to the halls of academia, the subject of teens, smartphones and social media is on a lot of minds these days. The peril caused by teenagers using, one study claims, their phones for non-school purposes an average of 40 hours a week, is becoming clearer with each passing day.

At last week’s meeting, Dunn referred to a source no less lofty than U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who released a public health alert last year on the potential dangers of social media to teenagers. Murthy said he believes 13, the typical minimum age to sign up for an account on a major social media platform, is "too early,” saying in an interview with ABC News that 13 is a "time when kids are developing their identity, their sense of self."

Others have also been sounding alarms. In an advisory posted earlier this year, the prestigious Mayo Clinic outlined some of the perils teens face on social media. “Social media use may have negative effects on some teens,” the clinic stated. “It might:

• Distract from homework, exercise and family.

• Disrupt sleep.

• Lead to information that is biased or not correct.

• Become a means to spread rumors or share too much personal information.

• Lead some teens to form views about other people's lives or bodies that aren't realistic.

• Expose some teens to online predators, who might try to exploit or extort them.

• Expose some teens to cyberbullying, which can raise the risk of mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

“What's more, certain content related to risk-taking, and negative posts or interactions on social media, have been linked with self-harm and rarely, death,” the clinic stated. It suggested parents keep a close watch on their kids’ social media use, set both limits and a good example – adults have a big phone-addiction problem too – and encourage face-to-face meetings with friends.

In a classroom setting, kids using phones often makes the difficult job of getting students to pay attention to the material virtually impossible, leading to predictable effects. A study of schools in 4 major English cities found that “dozens of high schools that instituted bans on mobile phones saw significant improvement in scores on high-stakes tests,” education news website The74 reported. “The increase was especially large for the lowest-performing pupils, who saw a jump in scores more than twice as large as the average student.” The academics estimated a phone ban is the equivalent of adding an hour of instruction a week. Large social media companies talk about being concerned about kids, but it could be that their products are, like the Corvair, unsafe at any speed.

A wave of pushback from parents shouldn’t come as a surprise. As opposed to the old days, when they learned about a problem with their child at school by getting a phone call from either the nurse or the principal, parents are now just a text message away. Many parents will also, naturally, place their own authority over the schools – it’s they, not the superintendent, who will decide when their children can and cannot use their phones, which the parents pay for.

While a phone ban seems radical to some, so is the problem it’s trying to fix. The Pine Bush district is planning to appoint a committee and hold public meetings on the topic. We think everyone should keep an open mind as this discussion moves forward.