LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Aging Untold) — As more school districts across the country ban students from using cell phones, an unexpected upside may be emerging from the digital detox: a reading revival.
Students at Pleasure Ridge Park High School are checking out books at a rate librarians say hasn’t been seen before, coinciding with a districtwide cell phone ban that took effect at the start of the 2025 school year.
Checkouts surge since fall
Librarian Erin Reed said the school has checked out 4,200 books in the first three months of the school year, twice what was checked out during all of last year.
“We’ve checked out 4,200 books in the first three months of school, which is twice what we checked out last year for the whole year,” Reed said.
The increase began around the same time Jefferson County Public Schools implemented a cell phone ban across the district. Reed said she believes the two are connected.
Reed also said students are also more social in the library.
“They’re sitting together now instead of apart. They’re discussing the books that they’re reading. It’s been really wonderful,” she said.
District policy goes beyond state rule
Kentucky prohibits student device use during instructional time, but the Jefferson County Public Schools ban goes further, requiring phones to be off and put away for the entire school day, described as “bell to bell.” Students have the option of using locked pouches to store phones during the day.
Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Brian Yearwood said the ban has changed classroom engagement.
“What I’ve seen happening now is because of the cell phone ban, full engagement. Students are now attentive, students are now participating in activities, group activities and interacting in the classroom environment,” Yearwood said.
Student reaction mixed
Senior Noah Berry said he was initially opposed to the policy.
“I was very angry, especially because this was my last year of school, so I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be such a long year,’” Berry said.
Berry said he used to check his phone dozens of times a day at school, but that has changed.
“I’ve started reading a lot more books than usual. Actually, my entire time at being at this school, I’ve never checked out a single book until this year,” he said.
Berry said he would tell skeptics the ban is manageable.
“It’s not as bad as you think it is. People need to read books more because books, they’re definitely going to tell a better story than what you’re going to find on your phones,” he said.
Psychotherapist Tom Kersting said the change in reading habits appears to be linked to the phone ban.
“As far as I’m concerned, what else could it be from? It has to be from them not having access to the phone,” Kersting said.
More states adopting restrictions
More than 30 states, including Kentucky, now have some form of restriction on student cell phone use in schools.
Kersting said phone restrictions can create problems for parents.
“It’s really been more of a parental problem, because the phone has sort of become the umbilical cord between parent and child,” Kersting said.
Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union and a mother of five, said she believes students should have access to their phones during the school day.
“Some of the excuses that we hear that if you’re nervous, if you’re scared, if you need to get a hold of your kid or your kid needs to get ahold of you, just call the school secretary. Those are not solutions that work in a modern context with the violent culture, unfortunately, that we have to deal with in our current society,” she said.
Measuring success
Yearwood said district leadership will continue to monitor the ban’s long-term impact on students, and that library trends are one indicator being tracked.
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