THIS autumn, smartphones will be banned in Jersey schools for learners up to age 16. The Education Minister’s decision is a bold and welcome step, responding to growing evidence of harm to young people’s attention, wellbeing, and social development.
But while this move will undoubtedly help create calmer classrooms and relieve pressure on families, it is not enough. We must ask a deeper question: what kind of economic and emotional ecosystem have we built around our children – and what is it doing to them?
Scrutiny, evidence and parental alarm
The Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel, chaired by Deputy Catherine Curtis, has led the way in examining these harms. Over recent months, they have gathered evidence from ministers, parents, health professionals, teachers, and digital experts. What emerged was strikingly consistent. Children are sleeping less, concentrating poorly, experiencing greater anxiety, and socialising less in person.
Parents reported pressure to provide devices, exposure to inappropriate content, and rising behavioural concerns at home. Teachers spoke of diminished attention spans and restlessness in the classroom.
Helping to frame this local testimony is the work of Jonathan Haidt, whose bestseller The Anxious Generation has had unusual reach on the Island. Haidt argues that since the early 2010s, the rise of smartphones and social media has coincided with a steep decline in adolescent wellbeing – especially among girls. His claims are supported by a recent international consensus study, in which more than 130 experts in neuroscience, psychology and child development were asked to weigh the evidence. They agreed on four key harms: disrupted sleep, shortened attention, addictive use, and reduced face-to-face interaction – all linked to the heavy use of digital devices and platforms.
A school ban helps – but only if we see the bigger picture
The coming school ban is an important act of leadership. It establishes clear boundaries during the school day and acknowledges the seriousness of the issue. It also lifts the burden from individual families trying to resist powerful norms. But it cannot be the end of the matter.
Smartphone use doesn’t stop at 3pm. The devices in question are not just communication tools – they are highly engineered portals into what economists and digital theorists now call the attention economy. If we want to help the next generation thrive, we must understand what this economy is – and what it demands of those growing up inside it.
The attention economy: An addictive logic
As Kyla Scanlon explains in her book In This Economy, today’s digital platforms are not neutral environments. They are finely tuned systems whose entire business model depends on capturing and holding your attention – then converting it into profit.
The longer you scroll, the more data you generate, the more ads you see, and the more valuable you become. You are not the customer. You are the product.
What keeps you scrolling? Emotional volatility, curated envy, outrage, and the hypnotic feedback loop of algorithmic recommendation. These platforms reward what is most attention-grabbing – not what is most truthful, useful, or humane. The result is a system that not only disrupts focus, but actively discourages it. It is designed to fragment your attention, keep you reactive, and pull you away from the sustained concentration that underpins learning, creativity, and emotional regulation.
This is why harms like anxiety, distraction, and poor sleep are not unintended consequences. They are embedded in the design of the system itself.
Gen Z and the End of Predictable Progress
But the attention economy doesn’t just exploit the present. It also reshapes the future. In Gen Z and the End of Predictable Progress, Scanlon explores how today’s young people experience not just distraction, but disorientation. For previous generations, life followed a legible path: study hard, get qualifications, find a job, buy a home, build a family, enjoy retirement. That ladder now looks broken.
- Housing feels out of reach.
- Having children seems unaffordable.
- Degrees bring debt without guarantees.
- Entry-level jobs are disappearing.
- Artificial Intelligence threatens even skilled roles.
Faced with this, many young people report a sense of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and quiet despair. The attention economy offers them constant stimulation, surface validation, and digital performance – but little in the way of lasting meaning or social mobility. It is both a distraction from and a symptom of a deeper unease: that the system no longer rewards effort in predictable ways, and the future is no longer a place to invest in.
Smartphones, then, are not just the problem. They are the interface through which a much larger problem is delivered: a system that mines attention and erodes trust in the future.
What can Jersey do?
For a small jurisdiction, Jersey has already taken important first steps. The school ban is a clear boundary. But further progress will require joined-up thinking and longer-term vision:
- Monitor the impact of the ban. If it shows benefits – in focus, wellbeing, or classroom engagement – it should open the door to further policies.
- Develop public health campaigns that highlight the workings of the attention economy, especially for parents and teens.
- Expand digital literacy in schools to include not just how to use devices, but why they’re built the way they are – and what that means for attention and autonomy.
- Support families in setting boundaries at home, especially during evenings and weekends.
- Consider further regulation, especially on addictive platform design and age-appropriate use.
These are achievable aims – especially in a community that can move quickly and collaborate closely.
A chance to rethink
What’s at stake here is not just screen time. It is the kind of society we want our children to inherit. A world in which attention is monetised, emotions are harvested, and effort yields diminishing returns is not a world designed for human flourishing.
Yet we are not powerless. The decision to ban smartphones in schools shows that Jersey can act decisively. The challenge now is to go further – not in panic, but with purpose. If this policy improves wellbeing and restores attention, let it be the beginning of a deeper conversation: about education, economic justice, digital design, and the kind of future we want to offer the next generation.
In protecting children from harm, we are also invited to protect something older and harder to define: the capacity to pay attention, to hope, and to grow.
A registered nurse for nearly 40 years, Bernard Place has been a clinician, teacher and researcher in intensive care units. From 2012 he managed departments in Jersey’s healthcare system and from 2015 to 2019 was the clinical project director for Jersey’s new hospital.
