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California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued a statement supporting calls to restrict smartphone use during school hours.
Newsom’s comments arrived soon after the US Surgeon General published an op-ed in the New York Times. It included cigarette-style health warnings to be applied to social media platforms.
Whether a matter of timing or coincidence, the Governor’s remarks came just hours before the Los Angeles Unified School District board members voted to pass a proposal to ban phones in schools.
Newsom and his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, have been long-term campaigners on the harms of social media on children. He has pledged to do all he can to progress efforts to take phones out of school classrooms because children and teens “should be focused on their studies – not their screens.”
He will strive for the majority Democratic Legislature to deliver the restriction before the end of the current session in August.
Previous efforts to restrict smartphones
The California figurehead cited similar legislation he drafted in 2019. Last year, he pleaded for the tech industry to drop a lawsuit against a children’s online safety bill he penned in 2022.
This fresh bid from Newsom would go a step further than his initial plans in 2019 to encourage schools to develop plans to restrict or completely ban smartphones on school grounds during class times.
An obvious consequence of any new proposals will be further objections. Many big tech and associated companies within Newsom’s California constituency have their base. Silicon Valley and Co. will not easily accept restrictions or influence over their operations, even on the fraught issue of child safety and social media, which has already seen many legal battles contested.
Newsom has previously been an ally of the tech industry. However, he is making a stand on this issue, sharing ground with his political rival, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The latter heralded a groundbreaking ban last year, prohibiting youngsters from using phones during school.
