Is banning smartphones in schools really effective?
By Ross Pomeroy | Published: 2025-01-15 17:19:00 | Source: The Present – Big Think
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Something’s happening in America’s middle and high school lunchrooms: They’re getting louder.
In the past few years, the auditory environment has been dominated by the clanging of trays, the buzzing of records, and the scraping of silverware. And now, the loud voices once again rise above the cacophony. Teachers are generally happy with this trend. It’s an audible sign that the smartphone ban is working. Students are no longer glued to their screens, they are talking to each other again!
Adam M. Macreadyresident assistant professor of higher education and student affairs at the University of Connecticut, hears this tale over and over again. He and his colleagues are exploring the implications of banning smartphones in public schools, but a handful of anecdotes do not constitute convincing scientific evidence. As policymakers move forward with removing smartphones from classrooms, will these efforts benefit students?
For the past decade and a half, children have been guinea pigs in an unprecedented social experiment. What happens when they are given powerful, pocket-sized personal computers and communications devices packed with addictive software with relatively little supervision? They can Immature prefrontal cortex Dealing with such distractions, especially in educational settings? Now that 95% of American teens Access to smartphone and Spend hours Every day, the consensus among adults seems to be a resounding “no.”
Overall, 68% of adults in the United States Response In a 2024 Pew Research Center poll, they say they support a ban on middle and high school students using their phones during class. What are the biggest reasons these Americans gave for supporting this move? Fewer distractions (98%), better social skills (91%), less cheating (85%), and less bullying (70%).
With public opinion resolute, politicians began to take action. As of November 4, 2024Eight states – California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia – have passed policies prohibiting or restricting phone use in schools. These measures will go into effect on a large scale during the current academic year. Twelve other states have introduced such legislation.
The movement to ban smartphones in schools extends globally as well. France, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, Israel and Sweden all have it Policies provided At the national level, Chile, Denmark and England are on the same path. In 2023, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) called for A global ban on smartphones in schools “to address the disruption caused by smartphones in classrooms and protect children from cyberbullying”.
But just as putting smartphones in teenagers’ pockets was a great experience, so too was taking the devices away. Parents, teachers, and policymakers assume that restricting phone use will improve teens’ social lives, enhance academics, and reduce bullying. Does science prove this?
Early research is unconvincing
The evidence collected so far is not convincing. Any positive effects of restricting smartphone use in middle and high schools are minimal or nonexistent.
Schools have begun implementing smartphone bans in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers have taken these opportunities to compare measures before and after policies were enacted, or, more commonly, to evaluate outcomes in schools that ban smartphones versus those that do not.
In one review In August, researchers at the University of Augsburg in Germany compiled and analyzed five research studies looking at schools in Europe. Taken together, the research suggests that bans can reduce social problems, the reviewers found. With less access to social media during school, children were not able to bully each other online as much. Reviewers also detected a slight boost to academics.
Based on early research, they recommended a ban on smartphones in schools, accompanied by educational measures, and regularly evaluated.
In widely described He studies Published February 2024, Sarah Abrahamsona postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, looked into the effects of smartphone bans in schools in Norway. It found that the ban significantly boosted girls’ mental health and slightly increased their grades, while boys were unaffected. Abrahamson hypothesized that girls’ greater phone use compared to boys could explain the difference in effect.
In another He studies Researchers in South Australia compared schools that imposed bans requiring students to keep phones off and away during the entire school day versus schools that did not have such a policy.
“Overall, results indicated that block and non-block schools either did not differ significantly, or there were minor differences, in terms of problematic cell phone use, academic engagement, school belonging, and bullying.”
Marilyn Campbella professor in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, conducted most of the research Scope review Of the research on smartphone bans to date. She and her comrades I looked 22 published and unpublished studies conducted worldwide. Their review wasn’t exactly glowing.
“Overall, our study suggests that the evidence on banning mobile phones in schools is weak and inconclusive,” they said. That’s it. Any potential improvements in academics, mental health, well-being and cyberbullying do not appear to be meaningful.
They added that although one-size-fits-all policies at the state or national level may be politically popular, they are not in the best interests of schools or students. “Politicians should leave this decision to individual schools, who have first-hand experience of the pros and cons of bans in their own community.”
Overall, Campbell and her colleagues added, studies on smartphone bans have also been poorly designed and have been unable to root out cause and effect.
Moreover, the policies proved to be uneven, with the ban being imposed Different shapes. Some schools require students to store phones inside backpacks throughout the day. Others use secure portable storage units or have students lock phones in magnetically sealed bags. Some simply install classroom phone holders on desks where all students place their devices.
Although the benefits of banning smartphones are not obvious to students, teachers’ wishes should be taken into consideration as well. Nearly three quarters of high school teachers, a third of middle school teachers, and even 6% of elementary school teachers say that “students being distracted by their cell phones in the classroom is a big problem.” According to For a Pew Research report published in April.
Here, the digital wellness lab at Boston Children’s Hospital announces The science is clearer: “Most cell phone bans in classrooms seek to reduce distractions from unregulated cell phone use, such as social media sounds, texting, and video gaming. On this topic, the evidence for the negative effects of media multitasking is clearer than some other aspects of smartphone bans.”
Don’t ban, educate
McCready generally agrees with Campbell and her co-authors. As he told Big Think:
“The effectiveness of any smartphone ban depends on context. We have observed that some schools that publicly claim to have implemented a full-day ban are not implementing the ban as carefully as intended (for example, phones are not locked at the start of school). The mere presence of a ban does not necessarily mean that students are unable to access their devices or that they are not misusing the technology available at school.”
McCready and Campbell also agree that educating teens about the proper use of smartphones is likely to be a better, longer-term solution than a blanket ban. “This will help students learn how to use their phones safely and responsibly at school, at home and beyond,” Campbell books.
“My research team believes that promoting digital citizenship, literacy and agency among students is vital to student well-being and success,” McCready said. “The best analogy I can give is related to driving a car. In the United States, we require teens and adults to take driver education courses, obtain learner permits, and take driving tests before getting their licenses. However, many children receive smartphones, iPads, Chromebooks, and other devices with little to no education or guidance.”
He says the ban simply reinforces the idea that phones are universally harmful, which is not true. It is a tool that requires instructions on proper use.
“We noticed that students in schools that were blocked immediately accessed their devices at the end of the school day. Their online behaviors outside of schools did not change,” McCready said.
He added that adults might benefit from lessons on smartphone hygiene, too.
“Public discourse also often fails to acknowledge how adults model the use of smartphones and other devices for children. How do teachers use their devices during the school day in front of children? How do parents, caregivers, older siblings, and others model these behaviors at home? If children’s smartphone use is a concern, we need to consider adults’ smartphone use as well.”
A new moral panic?
Take a step back and zoom out. In many ways, the growing fervor against phone use in schools reflects the moral panics of the past. Politicians and parents have always blamed all sorts of things – rock ‘n’ roll, Marilyn Manson, Dungeons and Dragons, Violent video gamesAnd so on – to corrupt the youth. Social media-equipped smartphones could simply be the next target for seniors. once again, Scientific evidence indicates These new technologies are not inherently good or bad, and their effects on teens are mysterious.
But of course, the issue of banning smartphones in schools is far from settled, and clearly deserves more high-quality research. Professor Macready aims to provide…
“To my knowledge, researchers have not yet been able to identify the most effective methods,” he told Big Think. “My mixed methods study with Drs. Cathy Rohn (UConn) and Jennifer Vaia (Sacred Heart) is studying the effectiveness of using Yondr bags to secure phones throughout the school day. We are collecting longitudinal data from seventh graders from four middle schools at three time points during the current school year. Two schools have implemented a Yondr bag ban, while the other schools have not. In addition, two schools (one with bags, one without) have implemented a combined digital citizenship curriculum.”
The results of the study are scheduled to be available next fall.
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