When Ann Arbor parent Amiel Handelsman sat down for coffee with a veteran Pioneer High School English teacher in September 2025, he expected an interesting conversation. Instead, he left with a mission.
The teacher described what she was witnessing every day in her classroom: students distracted by smartphones and social media, declining attention spans, increasing mental health concerns and the daily struggle of enforcing phone rules without damaging relationships with students.
“If she didn’t enforce the guidelines, she’d lose her students’ attention. If she did enforce the guidelines, she’d lose their trust. And the students most distracted by cell phones and social media were the ones already struggling to learn,” Handelsman recalled.
That conversation became the catalyst for ScreenWise Ann Arbor, a community organization that has grown over the past year into a voice advocating for what it calls a more thoughtful, evidence-based approach to technology in schools.
Today, the organization’s work extends far beyond smartphones. Members are raising questions about school-issued Chromebooks, educational software, artificial intelligence and how technology shapes children’s learning, social development and mental health.
Three goals, one mission
Handelsman said ScreenWise Ann Arbor, which he coleads with Ann Arbor parent, Kristen Glasener, has three primary goals.
The first is promoting “safe and wise use of technology in schools.” The second is supporting parents who want to encourage more real-world play, stronger family boundaries around technology, and, for some families, delaying smartphones and social media. The third is advocating for district-wide bell-to-bell phone-free schools.
“We started in September 2025,” he said.
One of the organization’s first efforts was creating a petition supporting phone-free school days. Within weeks, hundreds of parents and teachers had signed. By early 2026, that number had climbed to approximately 1,100 supporters.
Along the way, the group also discovered another need.
Parents repeatedly shared concerns that extended well beyond cell phones.
“When parents and teachers filled out the petition form, they gave us thirty pages of comments, stories and pleas,” Handelsman said. “Many of these described the negative impacts on students of school-issued devices and software.”
Questions kept surfacing
“Why is my fourth grader on a Chromebook all day? Why is my second grader watching YouTube in class? What’s up with all these gamified educational apps? Are we really going to let our kids delegate their thinking to AI?”
Those conversations gradually broadened the organization’s focus.
“By spring 2026, when Kristen Glasener joined me as co-lead, we had expanded our focus to include school-issued devices and software. This is where we’ve spent 95 percent of our time as a group over the past six months,” Handelsman said.
Building community
ScreenWise advocates for policy changes that bolster, Handelsman emphasizes that the organization is not interested in criticizing parents and/or educators in doing what they think is best for kids.
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Its goal, instead, he says, its goal is to create conversations that leave people feeling empowered and connected.
“Many parents tell us they’ve felt alone and are grateful to meet others facing similar challenges,” he said.
Teachers have also become an important part of those discussions. “They have first-hand experience navigating these dynamics and hold a variety of perspectives on technology. We learn a lot by listening to them,” Handelsman said.
Even amid difficult conversations about education and technology, Handelsman hopes people leave feeling encouraged. “When you look out at national politics and then in at the state of AAPS, it’s natural to feel discouraged, even disillusioned,” he said. “Our response to all this is to lean into curiosity and resolve. These moods are more constructive. They also feel better.”
Why now?
According to Handelsman, concerns surrounding children’s technology use have reached what he considers a tipping point for several reasons.
The first comes from daily experience. Parents and teachers, he says, increasingly notice students spending more time interacting with screens than with one another.
“Parents and teachers see kids with eyes down on screens rather than eyes up at people,” he said. “Sending Snaps and watching TikTok videos instead of talking, listening and laughing together.”
Perhaps most concerning, he says, many young people have never experienced anything different.
“These kids haven’t, so they cannot imagine the world being any different.”
For many adults, he says, that realization changes everything.
“The tipping point for many adults is the moment we realize this. It’s a painful yet important aha: These kids deserve better.”
Handelsman also believes attitudes toward large technology companies have shifted nationally.
He says many families have become increasingly skeptical about promises that more classroom technology automatically leads to better educational outcomes.
“Introducing technology into schools was supposed to improve learning, close the equity gap, and prepare students for careers in the tech era,” he said. “But it’s done the opposite.”
He points to research and international assessments that, in his view, deserve closer examination as school districts evaluate technology policies.
A different conversation about technology
One of Handelsman’s central arguments is that discussions about educational technology should begin with children’s development rather than the technology itself.
“What concerns me isn’t a single technology or issue but how out of balance everything feels,” he said.
He believes the key distinction is not smartphones versus AI or Chromebooks versus social media.
“The key distinction isn’t one technology versus the other. It’s the difference between adult brains and child brains.”
Children’s developing brains, he says, make them especially vulnerable to digital products intentionally designed to capture attention.
“Mature adults have at least some degree of impulse control and executive functioning,” Handelsman explained. “In contrast, children, even high school students, have much less impulse control and executive functioning.”
He cited neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath’s research, noting that “digital tools clash with the way human beings are built to learn.”
That perspective also shapes his views on school cellphone policies.
While some admin or educators argue that allowing students access to phones during lunch helps build digital responsibility, Handelsman disagrees.
“The story is sincere, heartfelt, and ungrounded in scientific reality,” he said, citing students’ limited impulse control.
Instead, he cites evidence that believes schools with all-day phone restrictions create environments where students naturally reconnect with one another.
“The lunchrooms are loud,” he said. “Students are talking, laughing, and building real friendships. That’s because the policies are designed for high school students’ brains.”
