My latest column explores new cellphone policies sweeping Minnesota high schools, many of them expanding limitations enacted last year.
When we talk about limiting cellphones at school, we’re often trying to address distraction. Distracted students can’t learn. That’s an important problem that was improved significantly in schools that implemented phone limits last year.
But some of the newer limits go even farther, addressing a deeper problem about phones: their addictive nature and the way they have reprogrammed social interaction.
And if these policies are helping kids learn and relate with each other, we might take a good, honest look at our behavior as adults, too.
Read “School cellphone limits are working, but we must go further,” in the Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
