At PHS, student-athletes must be able to transition from the classroom to practice within minutes, balance academics and their sport, and be responsible for maintaining their health. Consequently, strong communication is essential, whether that be in the form of notifying teachers about games or meets beforehand, scheduling their day, or adapting to last minute changes. Unfortunately, the new statewide phone ban has forced student-athletes to change the way they communicate.
Before the ban, team communication was simple. If practice details were changed, a captain or coach could send a message out. If athletes needed to know what to wear, someone could text the team. If there was a team bonding activity, everyone could be notified almost immediately. Now, much of that communication is done through email or has to wait until the end of the school day. That might not sound like a huge problem, but when it comes to organizing an entire team, it can become one.
“We email now, which just sucks because no one ever sees it, and we always have to remind people in person, which is just so stunting in all our plans, [for example] team bonding,” said Camila Barbosa ’27.
Moreover, Director of Athletics Brian Dzbenski explains that technology issues hinder communication for sports that have more participants.
“We’re working right now, with tech support, on enabling our coaches to do mass emails,” said Dzbenski. “Because of phishing, we are limited to 50 [recipients], so coaches can’t actually email the whole team and parents.”
Indeed, Rio Giamerese ’27 explains that the football team was impacted by these technical difficulties during the first week of school.
“Our coach had difficulty with his emails,” said Giamerese. “He could not send emails out, so everyone really didn’t know what was happening.”
The phone ban has also affected aspects of sports that make practices and games special for players. Barbosa explained that her team uses psyches, or team activities meant to build excitement and team spirit.
“It’s been a very important part of our team culture,” said Barbosa. “The fact that we’re not able to take pictures and post ... makes the team environment [less] together.”
Christine Giacino, the PHS girls soccer coach, has a different perspective. She has found the ban to be mostly positive because of the negative effects phones have on student-athletes.
“I think it’s a big distraction for kids, so I think that not having their phones is just kind of taking that temptation away and making it a lot easier to focus on school and what they actually should be doing throughout the day,” said Giacino.
Furthermore, Dzbenski adds to this perspective, arguing that the phone ban wasn’t implemented solely for educational reasons.
“Students believe that the phone ban occurred because in education it was just seen as a distraction to learning,” said Dzbenski. “But that’s not really encompassing the full reason why the phone ban occurred. I think that it comes down to excessive screen time and your mental health and [..] how that affects you over the course of your life.”
Essentially, the absence of phones can strengthen focus by removing a primary distraction as well as improving mental health broadly.
However, there are still downsides to the ban. As aforementioned, communication has been heavily compromised, at least for the near future, affecting camaraderie, efficiency, and clarity. Unfortunately, the phone ban is here to stay and athletes must learn to adapt to a policy regardless of how they feel about it.