The largest study ever of school cell phone bans finds that they offer decidedly mixed results, with teachers reporting fewer distractions when students lock their phones away during the school day, but little evidence the bans quickly bring improved academic achievement or better behavior, as many advocates have hoped.
The study, by scholars at Stanford University, Duke University, The University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania, compiled data from Yondr, a California startup that makes lockable pouches for schools, businesses and entertainment venues. Published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, it looks at data from about 4,600 schools and is the first nationally representative look at cell phone bans.
It’s also the first to rely on actual data tracking locked-up phones, not just school “no-show” policies that ask students to keep phones hidden in backpacks or pockets, said Thomas Dee, a Stanford economist who co-led the study. No-show policies, he said, are inconsistently and unevenly enforced and not a good basis for research. “We wanted to leverage the data from Yondr because it gives us much more confidence that in-school use of phones is actually being restricted,” he said in an interview.
A 2024 Pew Research study found that about one in three teachers consider students distracted by cell phones “a major problem.” Among high school teachers, that figure rises sharply, to 72%. More recently, Pew researchers found that 74% of U.S. adults say they would support banning cellphones during class for middle and high school students, up from 68% last fall.
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