How to actually get kids off their phones

It was the last day of school before winter break, and Aiden and his eighth-grade classmates were playing a game of Mafia. After the first round, though, one of Aiden’s friends got bored and quit playing.

Another friend called him a “screenager,” Aiden recalled — “like, your attention span is so short.”

The incident was an example of a larger trend, Aiden, one of several Scholastic Kid Reporters I talked to for this story, told me: “People are less likely to have fun and enjoy being around other people...