Teen's Fake Phone Hack Has Gone Viral: 'The School Ain’t Takin’ My Phone This Semester'

A teen’s phone hack is going viral on TikTok — and school administrators may not be too happy about it.

The video — posted by TikTok user Belle Hesse on Jan. 7 — shows hands placing a perfectly cut, phone-sized piece of sturdy cardboard inside a black phone case with an opaque screen protector. The results? What appears to be a normal phone in a case.

“The school ain’t takin’ my phone this semester 💀,” the teen wrote over the video, which has amassed over 16 million views as of Jan. 16.

Many schools have adopted “no phone” policies in recent years, and the hack seems to be designed to enable the teen to keep her real phone while handing over a decoy device to the school.

TikTok users were quick to chime in with their thoughts, with a number of teens noting that they simply turn in their old phones when it comes time to hand over a device each day.

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“I would give them my old iphone 6 instead of my new one, no questions asked,” wrote one person.

“TURN IN UR OLD PHONE,” insisted another.

Others lamented that their schools have started using Yondr pouches — small, magnetized pouches that lock when in designated areas — to keep phones away from students.

“My school can’t afford to fix my poor math teachers ac or get ant exterminators but they can purchase yondr pouches for over 2000 students???” wrote one commenter.

“The yondr pouches will be the end of me bro 😔,” said someone else.

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Cell phone bans in schools have grown in popularity — among both red and blue states — in recent months and years, according to CNN. At least eight states have enacted bans, and proposals are being considered in several more states in 2025, per the outlet.

Currently, California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia have enacted bans or are in the process of doing so, though they range in varying degrees of severity.

Several of the bans come in the wake of a June 2024 opinion piece in The New York Times by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. In the piece, Dr. Murthy stated that social media may be a contributing factor to mental health issues among young people. He also called for warning labels to be placed on social media, much like with alcohol and cigarettes.

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“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe,” Murthy wrote. “Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior.”

However, a number of parents do not currently support cell phone bans in school, with some citing the need to communicate with their children in the event of an emergency, such as an active school shooter, per the same CNN piece.

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Other experts note that simply keeping phones out of the hands of adolescents and teens during school hours won’t protect them from adverse effects of social media if they are still using social media platforms during other times of the day.

“We have not done our job as grown-ups to try to teach our kids the skills they need to actually navigate this technology,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, told the outlet. “We’ve just kicked the can down the road and thrown them into the deep end of the pool when they’re by themselves after school.”

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