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More than start the new calendar year with a pledge to complete Dry January. By giving up alcohol for a month, some hope for a physical or mental reset, while others hope to give up drinking for good. While of participants won鈥檛 make it through the full month, Dry January as a significant contributor to an overall decline in alcohol consumption.聽

Screen bans in schools can be education鈥檚 Dry January for technology, though it may well need to be a dry year 鈥� or even longer. This issue continues to take center stage, with the drumbeat for legislation and policies continuing as parents and advocates clamor for change. As of July 2026, , and had K-5 screen-time limits or bans for K-5, and states like and are beginning to study or develop similar policies. Yet transforming technology use inside schools and classrooms is so difficult that an intentional break may be the only way to truly adopt a better approach. 

It鈥檚 irrational and impossible to imagine technology will have no place in the classroom when it plays an outsized role in every adult鈥檚 daily life. But the current tactics for determining technology use in classrooms is also irrational and, in most cases, leads to less learning. Indeed, the noise around educational technology is so loud these days that you might well imagine yourself at a crowded bar. By the time you push your way through booming, confident voices, certain their approach is correct (no tech, the right tech, the same old tech done differently), you can鈥檛 even remember what you wanted to order in the first place. Dry January starts to sound like a welcome respite. 

The tendency in education policy to overcorrect is as constant as it is frustrating. No Child Left Behind may have been an imperfect policy that overemphasized annual test scores, but the overcorrection has left the education sector with feeble federal accountability 鈥� the dull teeth of NCLB replaced by a feather that can hardly be felt. Politically fueled culture war condemned the work to build national standards in the Common Core, with the resulting backlash throwing out baby and bathwater of billions of dollars of high-quality materials, training and assessments.

What if we accept this tendency and use it wisely for once? Bring on the screen bans. If we鈥檙e going to overcorrect 鈥� and we should 鈥� what鈥檚 needed is a sector-wide reconsideration of what happens in classrooms, how teachers use technology and which products truly lead to more learning. Without a clean slate, policymakers and educators will never have that quiet respite in which to consider what they miss, what worked, what makes the most sense for shrinking budgets and what new tools might truly harness AI-powered advancements. Dry January isn鈥檛 supposed to be easy, and neither will giving up the crutch of technology, even temporarily. If there are no screens, there鈥檚 no Peppa Pig during snack time, no YouTube break because students have 鈥渆arned it,鈥� no easy distractions while a teacher works with one student who needs additional attention.聽

Technology is woven throughout daily life in ways intentional and unintentional. Schools should use the screen-ban period as a time to thoughtfully consider how best to incorporate technology to build an educational experience that better serves all students. In some grades or classrooms, the answer may be that a minimal technological presence is what鈥檚 best.

It鈥檚 not hard to imagine that kindergarten or first grade students may not benefit from more than an hour or so each week of technology 鈥� 10 minutes a day. That could mean reading aloud to an AI tutor for 10 minutes three days a week and working on math problems generated based on students’ specific skills and weaknesses for the other two. Children who need it could meet with human tutors online for additional sessions, which isn鈥檛 the kind of screen time anyone is worried about. This strategy doesn鈥檛 require schools to maintain a 1:1 child-to-laptop ratio. If you accept that 10 minutes a day is reasonable, a screen-time break with zero minutes sounds much more achievable. Indeed, most participants in Dry January are occasional, recreational drinkers who still may benefit from a reset.聽

In the upper elementary grades, fourth- and fifth-graders can build the muscles of reading printed books and writing by hand. For decades, education leaders have bemoaned that teachers to well. Stepping away from it would allow teachers to use analog strategies in which they are trained and may well prefer. While today’s screen bans rarely address grades 6 to 12, these ideas could readily apply as well. English classes could return to printed books and AI-proof in-class writing assignments. Chemistry and biology could focus on traditional hands-on lab work and the acquisition of foundational scientific knowledge, neither of which requires a screen. It would be worth asking teachers and parents of secondary school students how and when technology makes learning better. 

When the ban is eventually lifted, school officials could reintroduce technology slowly, purposefully, with feedback gathered along the way and with clear metrics to determine whether students are reaching desired results. Even if a school ends up at a similar rate of technology usage as before the ban, if done right, everyone will know that the technology used has a purpose and achieves an outcome. 

Dry January is popular for a reason. An external forcing mechanism that allows people to rethink their habits is powerful in a world of endless options, a fire hose of media and influencers, and the double-edged sword of free will. For some, it will open doors to new ideas and possibilities. For others, it will be a badge of honor even if prior behaviors are reestablished. For school leaders, teachers, parents and students, it鈥檚 a healthy framework for refocusing learning while waiting for the pendulum鈥檚 inevitable swing back.

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