Smart Devices

Moved by research into the mental-health effects of cellphone addiction in young people, administrators at Wilton School District in Connecticut will form a committee to discuss the idea of restricting phones in schools.

The state will require students to stow phones during class — a decision that comes as states across the country fight back against excessive teen phone use, citing growing research on its negative impact.

A new bill signed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives K-12 school districts until 2025 to craft new policies limiting the use of personal devices, and related distractions, in the classroom.

The most recent legislative session saw a bill requiring every school district and charter school to set cellphone use policies by March 15, 2025. Other bills aimed to forbid book-banning and study issues with attendance.

The Cuyahoga County Overdose Prevention App is designed to keep drug users safe by connecting them to someone who can stay in contact until they’re out of danger of overdosing. It was developed through a state opioid response grant.

The My Whitfield community mobile app offers details on area housing, careers and events as well as links to regional municipal websites. It was developed in partnership between the county, the city of Dalton, and civic organizations.

The government app — known as CBP One — has become part of the ongoing political debate around how the government is handling immigration, with advocates criticizing it as being prone to glitches.

A proposal at Worcester Public Schools in Massachusetts to allow students to keep their cellphones during the day but not use them in class for non-educational material has received both support and criticism.

There are more than enough studies showing the harmful effects of phone addiction on developing minds to justify imposing limits on using cellphones in school. Those who have done so are reporting all positive outcomes.

More than four years after it sold thousands of unneeded iPads to Cornerstone Technologies, Rochester Public Schools is suing the company for allegedly making late, insufficient or no payments.

Project Tomorrow’s 2024 Speak Up report found that many elementary students lack access to personal devices after school, while students at higher grade levels are not using technology much for collaborative purposes.

House Bill 485 would require students to keep electronic devices out of the classroom, with some exceptions, and require schools to adopt policies to govern Internet use and teach students about hazards of social media.

Winners of Apple’s Swift Student Challenge will attend the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, showing off app concepts they built using an Apple-developed coding language.

Now that Florida state law has given school districts the green light to restrict cellphone use in classrooms, school boards across the Tampa Bay area are deciding how to approach the issue.

Keegan Lee was in ninth grade when she realized her addiction to social media apps had become "all-consuming." She has spent much of the past several years writing and raising awareness about social media addiction.

Separating kids from smartphones is a challenge, with polling showing more than 95 percent of teens have access to the devices and 54 percent say it'd be at least somewhat hard to give up social media.

The Conneaut Area City Schools Board of Education voted to buy new Chromebooks and improve the sound systems at a middle school and high school. Five to 12 laptops each day, out of 1,600 total, need repairs.

A divided state House on Tuesday passed a bill that would have Pennsylvania do something all its nearby neighbors have done — ban the use of handheld cell phones by drivers.