FEDERATION FOR THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Smartphone Ban? The Real Crisis in Schools is Social Media Addiction and Like Teen Smoking, it's Possible to Curb It: Nova Scotia Education Expert

Paul Bennett among leading line-up of speakers at Congress 2025, Canada's leading academic gathering, taking place May 30 - June 6

As the school year draws to a close, and educators in all 10 Canadian provinces with newly adopted smartphone bans weigh in on their success, a Nova Scotia education expert is drawing attention to the real problem facing children and youth today: social media addiction.

"We're attempting to control the wrong thing," said Paul Bennett, education reformer, policy analyst, adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University and senior fellow at Laurier-Macdonald Institute. "School smartphone bans alone won't fix teens' social media addiction. Until we address the fundamental problem, we're not going to succeed and we need a concerted, public health-led initiative to do so."

Bennett will present his views on social media addiction and the effectiveness of school smartphone bans at the upcoming Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Congress 2025), Canada's leading academic gathering and one of the most comprehensive in the world, taking place May 30 to June 6 in Toronto.

Billed as a leading conference on the critical conversations of our time, Congress 2025 themed "Reframing togetherness" serves as a platform for the unveiling of thousands of research papers and presentations from social sciences and humanities experts worldwide. With more than 7,000 scholars, graduate students and practitioners expected to participate, the event will challenge attendees to model togetherness by working across differences, questioning hierarchies, and bridging divides in knowledge and experience to tackle the world's most persistent challenges.

In his Congress presentation, Bennett will share why he believes smartphones are the new cigarettes, presenting "frightening and immediate mental health risks" to children and teens, and why the issue is much bigger than just education. Drawing from the July 2023 UNESCO report on the harmful effects of mobile technology, and Jonathan Haidt's international bestseller The Anxious Generation (2024), he'll illustrate the magnitude of the social media addiction problem and the shortcomings of current approaches to limit smartphone use among kids.

Though Bennett supports school smartphone bans as an important step in breaking the cycle of addiction, he sees them as little more than a band-aid solution that is exhausting to implement and nearly impossible to sustain. What's needed, he said, is a shift in strategy to focus broader public health and community resources on a concentrated social media cessation campaign, similar to the way smoking was targeted between 1999 and 2012, successfully dropping the rate of smoking among teens from 48% to 12%.

"Right now there's only one form of technology addiction that's accepted and that's gaming," said Bennett, who is advocating for change to include excessive and harmful use of mobile devices as a public health priority. "Only then will the necessary resources flow to stem social media addiction. Right now, teachers are being forced to carry the torch alone," he added.
 
To solve the addiction challenge, Bennett is calling for a reinforcement strategy, an approach that mobilizes public health, education, and social and community services to create and adopt mutually supportive policies aimed at shifting public opinion. Just as initial health warnings, family and peer influence, anti-smoking promotional messages, prohibition in public spaces and pharmaceutical cessation aids altered the trajectory of teen smoking, the goal would be to introduce similar measures aimed at reducing and managing time spent on social media.

"It's time for public health authorities, pediatricians and childrens' hospitals to step forward with an official diagnosis and the resources to tackle it," said Bennett. "So far they've allowed school systems and teachers to carry the ball. We need to change the dialogue from controlling devices to cessation of addiction."

Pointing to data that suggests 10-15% of children and youth globally are addicted to social media, Bennett said the problem is so widespread that teachers being asked to implement school smartphone bans may very well have addictive tendencies themselves. At Congress, he'll share findings from an international survey of school smartphone bans, including where they worked, where they didn't and how they can evolve to be an important part of the solution.

For example, Ontario's third attempt to eliminate smartphone in schools for the 2024-25 calendar year made some headway, with teachers reporting that students are onboard in larger numbers than anticipated and are starting to recognize the damaging effect of social media platforms.

"We used to think that smartphones were simply distracting students from performing well academically," said Bennett. "Now there's a growing understanding that the problem is far bigger than that. It's a growing mental health emergency that needs to be addressed."

Organized by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences in partnership with George Brown College, Congress 2025 is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Universities Canada, Colleges and Institutes Canada, University Affairs, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Sage, and The Conversation Canada.

Registration - which includes 100+ keynote and open Congress sessions, with a virtual attendance option for many presentations - is $30. Visit https://www.federationhss.ca/en/congress2025 to register for a community pass and access the program of events open to the public.