Sorry, Mom, can't text.

My school banned phones.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carrino.

Earlier this fall, California became the latest state to adopt a law that will ban cell phone use in schools.

The Golden State joins more than a dozen others that have instituted restrictive policies,

as alarm continues to grow about the potentially harmful effects of smartphone use on students learning and mental

health. Support for the policies spans the political spectrum. But there is one constituency,

or I should say one adult constituency, that sometimes has a hard time adjusting. Parents.

Catherine Jezer-Morton is a columnist for the Cut, a website from New York Magazine, and she wrote about the challenges of disconnecting.

I think that a lot of parents over the last, I'm going to say, decade have really incorporated,

integrated tech into their parenting to an extent where it feels like an

extension of themselves. And so I think, you know, parents, especially of kids that have, you know,

different issues that they might be struggling with in school or emotionally, I think they see

phones as a way of

kind of supporting their kids from afar all day. You are a mom yourself, right? Yes. What's been your

relationship with this issue? I mean, on a personal level, I would support phone bands in schools for my...

There is actually one that just went in place at my...

I have a 14-year-old and his high school.

Just this term has launched a band, and he finds it inconvenient because he can't, you know,

communicate with his friends during lunch and, like, find out where everyone's going for lunch.

You know, he's like, I only go to lunch with the same kids now because it's just the people in

...