School phone bans have little impact on academics or behavior, new study finds

The largest study to date on school cell phone bans is showing mixed outcomes: teachers say students are less distracted when phones are put away during the day, but there’s little proof that the bans are quickly leading to better grades or improved behavior, contrary to what many supporters expected.

Scholars at Stanford University, Duke University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania looked at data from about 4,600 schools, which adopted phone bans in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The findings were published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Cell phone ban led to fewer phones being used in classes

Big picture view:

Teacher surveys in schools that banned phones during the school day found that the share of students reporting using phones in class for personal reasons fell from 61% to 13%, according to the findings. 

GPS data also suggested that phone usage dropped dramatically — a roughly 30% drop in total device pings during school hours by the third year after its adoption of locked-up phones.

Banned phones didn’t significantly improve behavior, academics

Dig deeper:

But in the first year of adoption, schools that banned phones saw about a 16% increase in suspension rates — both in- and out-of-school. However, this effect faded in subsequent years, researchers found. The uptick likely reflected the fact that many schools took enforcement seriously — and that students turned to other disruptive behaviors.

Student well-being also dipped, but then bounced back. Subjective well-being declined in the first year of adoption, but then rebounded, the researchers found. It turned positive by the second year.

RELATED: Map: Which states have banned cell phones in schools

In addition, attendance, attention and bullying were largely unaffected. Effects on attendance were "close to zero," and researchers also found no measurable improvements in perceived online bullying or self-reported classroom attention.

Academic achievement gains were also minimal. Average effects on standardized test scores were "consistently close to zero" across the first three years after adoption, with similar findings across subjects.

Researchers note findings are ‘somewhat disappointing’

What they're saying:

"I think it’s reasonable to view these results as sobering," Thomas Dee, a Stanford economist who co-led the study, told The Associated Press. 

He added that not seeing better results at this early stage "is somewhat disappointing."

But he noted that as schools keep their bans in place, indicators like student well-being and suspension rates will improve, cautioning that the findings are just a glimpse into the early days of phone bans. 

"I firmly believe that getting student phone use down, recapturing their attention in classrooms within schools, is a critical antecedent to realizing their academic potential," he said, suggesting we need to give them a couple of years to see results.

Many teachers consider cell phones in classrooms a ‘major problem’ 

The backstory:

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 rose sharply, to 72%. 

More recently, Pew researchers found that 74% of U.S. adults said they would support banning cellphones during class for middle and high school students, up from 68% last fall.

As of this spring, at least 37 states and the District of Columbia require school districts to ban or restrict students’ phone use in schools. Teachers and parents typically support the bans, while students, on the whole, oppose them. 

EducationTechnologyU.S.