Photo: Mir Samir

When New York State banned phones in public schools from bell to bell this past September, the goal — according to the ban’s champion, Governor Hochul — was undistracted learning. But within weeks of the Great Phone Lockup, teachers began to notice an incidental (and arguably even more compelling) benefit: The teens were talking to one another as if they were in a Brat Pack movie. Sure, there’s been grumbling and some burner phones and scrolling in the bathroom. At one high school, an entrepreneurial senior even bought a pouch-unlocking magnet on Amazon and tried to charge classmates a dollar per jailbreak. But generally, with phones off-limits, the atmosphere feels different. There’s a pleasant buzz in the lunchroom, chatter in the hallways, and an alphabet of new analog hobbies popping up just about everywhere. “We’ve had a lot more school spirit,” says Rosalmi, a senior at New Heights Academy Charter School in Harlem. “People are more willing to do stuff.”

What stuff are they doing? At many schools, teachers have made cards, board games, and sports equipment available during free time, and the kids have deigned to use them. Kevin Casado, a coach and teacher at Math, Engineering, and Science Academy Charter High School in Bushwick, hands out volleyballs every lunch period. He says a lot more kids are playing this year than were last year. “It’s no net, open space, forming their own circles of ten or 12 kids, hitting it up to each other, an equal number of girls and boys,” he adds. Aidan Amin, a ninth-grader at Hunter College High School, is in a friend group that congregates in the school foyer to stack OK Play tiles and compete at Sorry! and other tabletop games during lunch. “I’d say it’s made us closer. Honestly, half the people I’m playing board games with I didn’t know at all before this,” Aidan says.

At Rosalmi’s school, dominoes rule the cafeteria. “Dominoes is really a staple Dominican game. People get passionate. You have to slam that first piece down on the table!” she says, adding that there’s trash talk “but it’s game trash talk. It’s really funny.” About 11 miles south, at Brooklyn Technical High School, the name of the game is poker, the trash talk is (sometimes) in Russian, and instead of chips or cash, the kids bet with hair ties. Josh (not his real name), a junior there, says about half a dozen games go on during free periods. He tends to play Texas Hold’em with a group of friends he made this year. Their antics draw spectators and even side wagers: “We have one player who is probably the least skilled, but a lot of people bet on him because he has absurd luck,” he says. “He pulled our group’s first-of-the-year full house with pocket aces. He’s very entertaining.”

Other students have discovered vintage technology like Game Boys and mp3 players. Alexei Kotov is a sophomore at Aviation High School in Queens. He bought a CD Walkman on Amazon last year, and since the phone ban started, he has been packing his dad’s old CDs — the Doors, Weezer — in his backpack. “My favorite one’s probably No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom,” Alexei says. “I like the vocals. It’s, like, really emotional.” He shares his earbuds at lunch and swaps recommendations with friends. “One of them is really into Queen,” he says.

Noshin Sayira is a junior at Stuyvesant High School, meaning she’s in the middle of the highest-pressure year at what may be one of the highest-pressure high schools in the country. She tells me that students’ top objection to the phone policy is that it’s become cumbersome to do homework between classes or to quickly study in the hallway before a test. But Noshin recently started printing out her study guides and has found that reviewing on paper actually works better: “I don’t get distracted by notifications,” she says. She and her friends have developed a stress-relieving free-period ritual: They sketch one another’s outfits. “One of my friends usually has supplies like colored pencils and proper paper,” she says.

Tokyo Levy, a seventh-grader at I.S. 318 in Williamsburg, is a discernibly different kid than he was in his phone-carrying days, at least according to his mother, Krystyna Printup, an art teacher at the Brooklyn School for Social Justice in Bushwick. “He was forced into the rapid learning and usage of technology during COVID when he had to attend school from home via Zoom,” she says. That led to a fixation on video and computer games — Minecraft, Clash Royale — then social media. “Now, his phone is no longer clutched by his side to run to after dinner or before bed. There have even been a couple days where he’s left his phone accidentally at home.” At school, after noticing kids gathered around chess boards during lunch, he decided to sign up for the chess club. “I’ve always thought of people who played chess as really intelligent people. I see other people play, and it has really motivated me to try it out for myself,” he says. Participating in soccer in the schoolyard at recess inspired him to join a soccer league in his neighborhood, too.

Lately, he’s been bugging his parents not for a new video game or an upgraded phone but for a mainstay of their own childhoods: a bicycle. He wants to hang out with the new friends he’s made at school on the weekends.

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