The Dive: No Phone Zone

We hope everyone is staying safe during Tropical Storm Debby. Stay tuned to official updates from the National Weather Service. 

Over the past year, a phone-busting movement has gained momentum among parents and teachers across the country. Though it may have once felt like a lost cause, many school districts are taking back control of the classroom by prying students away from their devices. 

The release of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and the U.S. Surgeon General’s recent request to add a mental health warning label to social media platforms have accelerated this movement. 

While critics have argued those conclusions are based on weak science, we’re certainly dealing with some problems related to our dependence on phones: just look up “text neck syndrome.” 

Lawmakers in Florida, Indiana, and California have passed school phone bans. And while North Carolina lawmakers have attempted to rally support for bills directing the state Department of Public Instruction to study phone policies in schools, legislation has stalled twice. 

Last year, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein joined a swath of states in a federal lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, accusing it of designing addictive platforms that harm young people. Hundreds of school districts across the country, including, at least 12 in North Carolina, are suing Meta and the owners of TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat on similar claims.

School districts in the Cape Fear region haven’t joined those suits, but they are taking notice of the phone-free movement.

Cedar Grove and Town Creek middle schools in Brunswick County will begin a year-long pilot program this fall using individual pouches with a magnetic clasp to store phones during the day. Central magnetic stations open and close the pouches at the beginning and end of the day, and students must use them if they want to keep their phones with them at school. Pouches with velcro flaps are available to students who need to use apps for medical reasons.

Some parents and students oppose any phone restrictions, citing safety concerns if a crisis emerges.

On Tuesday, New Hanover County Schools heard a presentation from a representative of Yondr, the company that makes the magnetic bags, who said the California-based firm has partnered with 3,000 schools across 24 countries.

The pouches cost roughly $30 per student. If the district ordered pouches for each high school student, it’d cost about $200,000. Brunswick County Schools is spending about $31,400 on the pilot program in two schools, according to a district spokesperson.

Importantly, the district is low on cash. During the Tuesday meeting, Board member Stephanie Kraybill held up a cheaper alternative for storing phones. Fellow board member Hugh McManus said enforcing policies is difficult for teachers but added the ubiquity of phones in the classroom is detrimental to learning. 

“It’s one of the worst social issues I’ve ever seen,” he said. 

The Yondr representative said the pouches remove pressure on teachers to be the phone police. School leaders who have used the pouches report improvements in eye contact, behavior, and instructional time. 

New Hanover does not have a district-wide phone policy. The board wasn’t immediately sold on partnering with Yondr, but did signal that it would come up with a more uniform phone policy for schools to follow.

For most young people, phones have become an appendage rather than an accessory. The omnipresence of phones has even created some tricky legal issues. Assistant District Attorney Ashton Herring warned the board last week that students are routinely committing felonies by sending each other sexually explicit images.

A new state law that takes effect in December makes it possible to charge 16- and 17-year-olds who share this material as adults, a situation Herring described as “dire” given the cases she’s worked on. In just the past few months, Herring said she’s prosecuted five students from three different schools who secretly filmed another student masturbating in the bathroom and shared the video.

Law enforcement has discretion when investigating the distribution of such material, and officers can give students a warning and remove it from their devices. But students find ways to re-download it.

“What we’ve been doing has not been effective,” Herring said. 

–Johanna F. Still

Read this newsletter online or contact The Dive team with tips and feedback at johanna@theassemblync.com.

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Quack Attack

Last week, The Dive looked at the rising cost of campaigning for state Senate District 7 in New Hanover County, ending with a note that Democratic challenger David Hill and Republican incumbent Michael Lee hadn’t yet stooped to mudslinging this year.

The edition went out to inboxes around 9 a.m. About 10 minutes later, I checked my own physical mailbox and found two flyers from Lee’s campaign attacking Hill’s alleged views on gender identity and issues like gender-affirming care and participation in sports. 

Like a lot of campaign ads, they mixed fact–quotes from Hill’s own blog–with hyperbolic language and all-caps for emphasis: “And if YOU disagree? YOU’RE IGNORANT.”

That night, Lee’s campaign ran a TV ad during the Olympics that went a little further, framing Hill’s views on gender as “radical” and “too extreme.” The ad ends with a pronouncement: “Dr. David Hill–he doesn’t know best. He’s just a quack liberal.” To drive home the point, it includes the sound of a duck quacking.

Thankfully, I had included the caveat last week that the race could go negative at any point. 

Now, I know plenty of people who shrugged Lee’s ads off. Some, already planning to vote for him, speculated the ads were aimed at “getting more conservatives off the bench,” rather than illuminating policy issues. Others said I shouldn’t expect too much from political rhetoric in a year where couch jokes and dead bears have generated headlines.

But, still, more than a few noted that “quack” seemed a particularly pointed barb. Derived from the Dutch “kwakzalver”—a hawker of salves—the truncated English version has denoted fraudulent medical practice since the late 16th century. 

Quackery is not necessarily criminal, but Hill, a pediatrician, definitely took it as a shot at his professional practice.

“I am disappointed my opponent has chosen to try and smear my reputation instead of addressing the issues at stake in this election,” said Hill. 

I put the issue to Lee, acknowledging that Hill’s ideological and political beliefs were fair game, but asking if “quack” might be going too far—especially since Lee had his own professional reputation as an attorney defamed by Democratic challenger Marcia Morgan in the 2022 election.

Lee disagreed.

“The ad says nothing about his competence to practice medicine, but explicitly calls into question his stance on these three social issues … It does not attack his profession, but expresses an opinion on his political ideology,” he wrote.

Negative ads are a mixed bag—they can be devastating, or they can turn off potential voters. They can also inadvertently help lesser-known candidates gain name recognition. 

If that’s the case, being called a quack might make Hill a lucky duck. 

–Benjamin Schachtman

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Around the Region

Let Them Eat Drapes: Some Wilmington City Councilmembers balked at the proposed $140,000 price tag to replace drapes in the Thalian Hall council chambers, WHQR reports.

Hillcrest Refresh: Housing officials are making progress on plans to raze and redevelop Hillcrest, a 1940s-era public housing development, Port City Daily reports.

West Bank Win: After years of debate and uncertainty over what kind of development belongs on the west bank of the river across from downtown, New Hanover County Commissioners opted to pursue conservation, Greater Wilmington Business Journal reports.

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Around the State

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