So I have eye witness accounts of this lunchroom saying that's not true. The lunchroom was deafeningly loud before the ban.
This school is also a magnet school with only high-performing kids who did not suffer from distraction problems and who actively made use of phones during class for classwork.
All my teacher friends (before this article) had joyously reported on lunch rooms being loud again (and even fights and lol, sex) happening.... But in a good way. If kids aren't getting into some trouble then they're not interacting and learning about society and human nature enough
I have a kid in a non-magnet HS and one in a magnet HS (in NYC). This article isn't off-the-mark but I would say there will always be variations by school.
This school is also a magnet school with only high-performing kids who did not suffer from distraction problems and who actively made use of phones during class for classwork.