Study shows school cell phone bans have little effect on academics but do have one huge benefit

A nationwide study of cellphone bans at thousands of American schools showed little improvement in test scores — but significant gains in student wellbeing.The May study amassed data from over 40,000 schools between 2019 and 2026, and compared the experience of students with minimal phone restrictions over three year cycles against those required to lock their phones in Yondr pouches from the day’s first bell to last.It found mixed results, but ones many teachers desperate to get their students attention back will be immediately pleased to see — stringent phone bans led to an 80% decrease in phone usage in the classroom, dropping personal phone use from 61% of students to just 13% over three years.With about 75% of teachers calling phone use a “major problem” in a 2024 Pew Research study, those reductions alone could justify pleas for intervention from lawmakers and administrators.But the study — carried out by researchers from Stanford and Duke University, and the University of Pennsylvania and Michigan — did not yield the results many lawmakers touting the bans hoped they would, as test score changes were “consistently close to zero” in the first three years of phone bans.Those muted results were found in standardized test scores, and across individual subject grades.Some experts, however, urged educators and lawmakers not to be dissuaded by the lack of test results and explained it may take a few years for those improvements to show.“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,” said Stanford economist and study co-lead, Thomas Dee.“I think it’s reasonable to view these results as sobering,” he told the Associated Press, while admitting the test score results were “somewhat disappointing.”But Lee touted perhaps the study’s most significant findings — student well-being improved with phone bans.“...