A swirl of political, societal, technical, and practical currents converged to help a phenomenon—the “cellphone ban"—rise to prominence in 2024, making it Education Week’s word (or phrase) of the year.
Concerned about students’ mental health and declines in academic performance, education administrators saw curtailing or prohibiting the use of the devices at school as a way to boost concentration in the classroom and address factors that could contribute to bullying, anxiety, and depression.
They were joined by state schools chiefs, governors, and legislators who put new mandates in place, requiring districts to set and enforce policies that would ban cellphones or limit their use during school hours. And those efforts were buttressed by countless think pieces, social media debates, and kitchen table conversations about how to help “Kids These Days” form healthy screen time and social media habits.
At the center of those discussions: social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose book, The Anxious Generation, was quickly deemed a must-read for parents, educators, and policymakers upon its March publication. Haidt’s book—met with both criticism and praise—posits that developments like the smartphone, the front-facing camera, and more advanced social media platforms have led to a “rewiring of childhood.”
An explanation of our process for selecting Education Week’s 2024 word of the year: Education Week staffers made our selection after gathering suggestions from reporters and editors covering every sector of K-12 education—from technology to curricula. We then ran a few internal polls and pored over the most read stories of the last year for a look for trends that aligned with the top picks. Hey presto—we had ourselves a winner.
Our process looks a bit different from that of the Oxford English Dictionary, which makes its annual pick by considering new and emerging words, and expressions that are quickly ascendant in the cultural lexicon.
Interestingly, OED’s 2024 word of the year matches up closely with Education Week’s. According to OED: “‘Brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media.”
That explanation sounds a lot like a teachers’ lounge conversation about cellphones.
OED’s past picks include “vape” in 2014, “vax” in 2021, and “rizz” in 2023.
Education Week’s picks are a little less novel, largely because the field isn’t known for such frequent, dramatic shifts in word usage (unless you count ever-evolving student slang, bruh). Our 2023 word of the year was “math,” which experienced a swell of attention in light of declining test scores and hopes of bringing the same changes the “science of reading” brought to early-literacy instruction.
What almost made the list? Finalists for Education Week’s 2024 word of the year that—like the first runner-up in a Miss America pageant—will step in should “cellphone ban” not be able to fulfill its duties are: AI and disruption.
Both words are reportedly sleeping in their tiaras and sashes and practicing their dramatic crying faces, ready to take on the top job at any moment. (And both say they’re still committed to world peace.)
Why students’ cellphones got so much attention this year
Haidt spoke with governors, policymakers, and international media in 2024, arguing that children should have less time on social media and more time for unstructured play that would allow them to explore their agency and develop stronger social relationships.
“My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation,” he wrote in The Anxious Generation.
In June, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a warning label on social media platforms, citing studies that found a correlation between frequency of social media use and symptoms of depression and anxiety in adolescents.
By December, at least 19 states had passed laws or enacted policies that ban or restrict students’ use of cellphones in schools statewide, or recommend local districts enact their own such policies, an Education Week analysis found.
Both teachers and principals told Education Week that Haidt’s book made their recommended reading lists. But, while many educators said they see the merit in restricting their use, schools faced complicated questions about enforcing cellphone rules students have learned to evade. Some educators reported parents, accustomed to contacting their children at all hours of the day, are resistant to new restrictions. Some said tragedies like school shootings are a reminder of the need for access to phones during the school day.
And some critics argued the rush to regulate cellphone use is merely a Band-aid that doesn’t do enough to address the complex factors behind students’ mental health and academic declines.
“I am now in my 25th year of teaching and I can say that it is hard to build a case for the unrestricted use of phones in classrooms,” New York City teacher Tom Moore wrote in an August opinion piece. “That said, it is also hard to see how a phone ban will be, as some suggest, the cure for the anxiety, lack of engagement, and general anomie felt by teenagers today.”
Why our runners-up were in the running
AI took the education sector by force as the technology’s rapid development outpaced both federal regulations and district policies.
Schools reported using new generative AI platforms for everything from writing job listings to augmenting lessons for students with disabilities. States used AI to weigh school funding decisions. And administrators faced a raft of ethical questions about detecting and disciplining AI-abetted cheating, as well as using AI technology in place of traditional metal detectors at school entrances and even facial recognition in schools.
Disruption colored the last quarter of the year, starting with the September deadline for schools to commit their remaining federal COVID-19 aid. Without that fiscal lifeline, many districts face tough decisions about declining enrollment, closing campuses, and discontinuing programs.
Disruption is also a key word used to describe the education plans of President-elect Donald Trump, who says he wants to shake up the system in favor of more school choice and less bureaucracy. Nine of Education Week’s 25 most-read stories in 2024 are stories about Trump’s plans after he won a second term. They include a story about whether Trump can really dismantle the Department of Education, and a story about Trump’s announcement of former wrestling executive Linda McMahon as his nominee for education secretary.
Other notable education words in 2024 (and related stories)
- Fiscal cliff
- Culture wars
- Project 2025
- Lucy Calkins, Fountas and Pinnell
- Title IX
- Chronic absenteeism
- Private school choice
We’ll see you in about 12 months with the 2025 word of the year. Start logging your predictions now.
