Children learn best when they are free to pursue their own interests for as much time as they want.
This idea is the basis of Self-Directed Education—as described and practiced for over 100 years, going back to the founding of Summerhill School in 1921. The idea was expounded upon by Sudbury Valley School, originator of the Sudbury movement, in 1968, and by John Holt, the founder of unschooling, between 1964 and 1985.
Unfortunately for us today, all of these pioneers were working during a time before personal devices existed. They left us no guidance on how to understand the effects of personal devices on children, or whether their philosophies of non-interference by adults remain relevant in this brave new world of technology. As a result, today’s practitioners of Self-Directed Education are divided on these questions.
Peter Gray, the most prominent spokesperson for Self-Directed Education today, holds steadfastly that children should be given unlimited access to devices; that video games, social media, etc. are not essentially different from any other kind of children’s play. Meanwhile, Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation and co-founder with Peter Gray of Let Grow, has recently started arguing that social media is one of the primary causes of Gen Z’s mental health crisis.
Practitioners of the Sudbury model are divided as well. For example, Ben Draper from the Macomber Center, where kids are free to spend as much time on devices as they want, has advocated for us to stop worrying about kids spending time on smartphones. Meanwhile, Zena Democratic School, a long-time leader of the Sudbury movement, recently broke from tradition to set up a system of boundaries around device use.
In my view, this is not simply a continuation of an age-old debate about philosophy of education. The landscape is shifting under our feet. The idea of unlimited screen time for children may have been reasonable in 2015 and yet be untenable in 2025. The introduction of social media, smartphones, and tablets around 2012 altered our lifestyles and our society in major ways. Those changes took a few years to complete, and by 2017 scientific research was beginning to show a sharp uptick in youth mental health disorders—a trend which continues unabated even now.
It’s not certain that the aforementioned technologies are the cause of the mental health crisis (more on that later), but for practitioners of Self-Directed Education to just carry on like it’s 1968 is beginning to seem dogmatic. There is no doubt that we are in a crisis, and carrying on like before is not going to get us out.
The Beginning of a Problem
When The Open School started in 2015, personal devices were not an issue. We had no regulations, yet students barely used them. Most students did not own a personal device. Over the years this gradually changed. For a while The Open School existed in an uncomfortable purgatory where students had unlimited access to screens and we felt a little bad about it, since we saw many students growing isolated by their devices.
The philosophy of Self-Directed Education had been successful for decades, or longer. It worked for Sudbury Valley in 1968. It worked for Summerhill in 1921. And according to Peter Gray, it worked for hunter-gatherer bands in prehistory. Surely it would still work today. So we ignored our discomfort.
Finally in 2023 we implemented a “screen free day” one day each week, following the example of Miami Sudbury School. (We actually called it Community Day since we were still allowed to use TVs, just not personal devices.) Community Day was controversial among our students, with about half in favor and half against (we use a democratic process, so it literally came down to the students’ votes). It remained controversial for many months, until finally its opponents warmed to it—or at least their passion against it cooled.
Community Day was hard in the beginning—most students did not know how to exist without their personal devices. They interacted with each other a lot, which was a lot more than they were used to, resulting in frequent fights and messes. And when Community Day ended at 3:30pm, they breathed a sigh of relief as they could finally get back on their screens. Things got smoother over time, but we never managed to escape the feeling that Community Day was a disruption of normal activities, rather than being normal itself.
As an aside, The Open School does have a virtual program, which is mediated entirely by personal devices. My discussion here only applies to the in-person program, where devices more often than not are a barrier to connection with the people around us. In the virtual program it is the opposite—devices are the way students connect with each other, so limiting their use would harm rather than help their immersion in community.
The Beginning of a Reaction
In early 2024 a fire was lit under us when a colleague and I read The Anxious Generation, in which Jonathan Haidt used scientific studies to link the introduction of social media and smartphones to the youth mental health crisis. Never mind for now that the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the topic. The book urged us to think about it and taught us that just because things used to be alright doesn’t mean they must still be alright.
For The Open School’s in-person program, the issue was not that we saw our students’ mental health declining. The issue was that if you were to walk into the school at any given time, you were likely to see most students immersed in a phone, tablet, or laptop, not talking to anyone. This was not what we envisioned as the purpose of our school, and it was not what we believed most people wanted out of a school. Further, it was a collective action problem, meaning that it could not be solved by individuals choosing to make a change—if one person decided to put away their device, they would find no one to talk to or play with, so they would have no choice but to go back to the device.
The only way out of the collective action problem is regulation at the community level. We knew that Zena Democratic School, a group we liked and respected, had implemented such regulation at their school in the previous year. We also felt that Community Day was insufficient to solve the problem, as the day is short enough that students could choose to just suffer through a day of boredom rather than create new habits.
Is Tech Harmful?
Back to the question of scientific consensus, as promised. Jonathan Haidt continues to provide compelling evidence that social media and smartphones are one of the primary causes of the youth mental health crisis. Meanwhile, other researchers such as Candice Odgers continue to provide compelling evidence that there is no such causal link. This is a typical scene in social science, as humans (and especially groups of humans) are very complex and hard to make generalizations about.
For people who work directly with children, however, the scientific debate is not and should not be of much concern.
For those of us who work directly with children, we can see the impact that technology has on each individual person, as well as the impact that it has on our community. Is Instagram the reason that Tarah, age 14, has started having suicidal ideation? We don’t know. What we do know is that since she got her phone she spends virtually all her school time staring into the screen, and rarely talks to anyone or gets up out of her chair. (Tarah is a fictional person, used here to illustrate a point, although this scenario is realistic based on our experience.)
We see that students who put away, or lose access to, their devices for a time quickly make new social connections, and this benefits not only them, but our whole community.
Yet we understand that video games, videos, and social media can be useful and educational tools. Devices can be great when used responsibly, but harmful if used irresponsibly. Further, children’s agency (freedom of choice) is a virtue in itself. It would be better if we did not have to regulate kids’ screen time.
The Verdict
For now, The Open School’s in-person program has settled on a policy of “Community Hours”—personal devices are not allowed during the hours of 10:30am and 1:30pm (3 hours) each day, except by permit. The permitting policy is generous (a permit can be granted for most kinds of activities), and in addition there are exceptions to the rule—for example, people can briefly call or text without a permit, or use a device to facilitate an in-person activity, such as looking up rules for a board game. The policy will most likely evolve further over time and as the tech landscape continues to shift.
In the several months since we enacted this policy, our culture seems to have become healthier. Social activities are much more common; the community feels more alive and vibrant. Most people’s social networks have grown larger. Physically active play is popular again. Community Hours no longer feels like a disruption of normal activities—it is a normal activity.
The Open School continues to provide access to technology for students, but it is regulated. Laptops are provided, but a student can only use school laptops for up to one hour per day. The school TV can be used to play video games or watch videos, but only for a limited time each day.
Students’ personal devices are difficult for us to regulate, so students who bring their own devices have unlimited screen time outside of Community Hours. The Open School neither encourages nor discourages students from bringing personal devices. But we encourage parents to think carefully before sending their child to school with a device, especially considering that students get the most out of their time at school while they are interacting with others.
