“I’ve been hearing a lot about banning phones in schools. What do you think about it?”
Hi there, and welcome back to another week of Ask Trish! I hope you’re all well and having a great August. (For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the end of summer is here. When you have a moment, get outside and enjoy these last few weeks of sunshine!)
Thank you so much to this week’s question-er for the fantastic and incredibly topical question. Indeed, the movement to ban phones in schools is gaining a lot of steam; across the US and around the world, in countries from Europe to Asia, schools and sometimes even governments are working to ensure that students aren’t spending their time in class watching TikToks. This shift raises some questions, like: what exactly is a “phone ban”? Are there different types of bans? How do folks feel about them? And what do we actually know about phone bans in classrooms? At the end of this post, I will briefly share my take on banning phones in schools — but I encourage you to use my perspective as a starting point, and do some additional research and inquiry yourself.
Sound like a plan?
First and foremost, what is a school “phone ban”? Broadly speaking, these phone bans generally refer to rules and regulations that aim to prohibit the use of cellphones during the school day. But that broad definition doesn’t capture the diversity of bans that have been implemented across the US and globally. Just consider Florida — in 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law legislation that required schools to develop some sort of student cellphone policy. Across the state, different schools went in different directions. Some were more lax, while others, like Orange County Public Schools, the nation’s 8th largest school district, went quite restrictive, banning phone use not only during class time, but during free time, e.g., lunch hours, in between classes. This may seem like a technical point, but these nuances matter — and in that vein, I hope that you’ll embrace this point and be a bit more precise when communicating about phone bans.
So, do people like phone bans? Actually, a lot more than you’d think. Despite the fact that today’s parents are notorious for wanting to constantly track, monitor, and stay up-to-date with the goings-on of their children, according to a 2022 study of nearly 11,000 parents with children, 61% expressed support for banning cell phones from classrooms. Not only that, that number was consistent across racial groups and parents of different socioeconomic status. Educators, too, like phone bans. A 2020 survey of principals from 210 schools published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than 90% of principals supported restrictions on student cell phone use. And interestingly enough…plenty of youth like cellphone bans, too. There are countless case studies, from Maryland to Florida, where youth, while initially resistant, later say that they came to love their school’s phone ban. A senior in Orange County reported: “It has helped people be who they are — instead of who they are online — in school.” Of course, that doesn’t mean that every student likes it. Other students at the same school in Orange County have complained that without their phones, they feel that they have little agency or freedom; they also bemoan the new surveillance that has come with phone bans (now, security patrol the hallways and lunch rooms, looking for phones and snatching them up). Still others feel that phone bans are a step back, making students less productive, in-the-know, and less able to socialize with one another. So no doubt, phone bans are not universally loved. There are pros and cons (which vary, depending on the type of the ban.) But many more folks (including young people, many of whom I’ve spoken to!) like them much more than I (and, I think, anyone) anticipated.
That leads quite naturally into our last question: feelings aside, what do we actually know about phone bans? Do they work? In a nutshell, the evidence is mixed — but when phone bans do work, they work incredibly well. Just consider a study examining smartphone bans in schools in Norway. The author, Sara Abrahamsson, collected data about schools’ phone policies and then combined that information with administrative data about student outcomes. And what did she find? “…banning smartphones significantly decreases the health care take-up for psychological symptoms and diseases among girls. Post-ban bullying among both genders decrease. Additionally, girls’ GPA improves, and their likelihood of attending an academic high school track increases. These effects are larger for girls from low socio-economic backgrounds.” Pretty amazing, right? Indeed, these results suggest that there’s a powerful equity argument for smartphone bans…because those that have the most gain are those that have the least. Another study, which examined school smartphone bans in England, found very similar results — including the finding that it was the lowest-performing students that gained the most from smartphone bans (reinforcing that equity point!). But then…yet another study, which aimed to replicate the English study in Sweden, found “no impact of mobile phone bans and can reject even small-sized gains.” So this is what I mean…mixed evidence. But some experts push back on that, arguing that it all depends on what you consider to be relevant “evidence.” If you open up the scope of relevant evidence to say, emerging research about social media and mental health harms, you might be even more persuaded by school cellphone bans; after all, it was just recently that the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, argued that it isn’t clear that social media is safe for youth and ought to come with a surgeon general’s warning label.
Okay…that was a ton of info. You’re probably thinking…Okay, Trish! Interesting stuff. But enough of the suspense, already…tell us what you think. Here’s what I think: as is the case for the vast majority of social phenomena, it will likely never be possible to perfectly estimate the impact of a phone ban on student outcomes. In other words, I suspect that the quantitative evidence will always be mixed. But the anecdotal evidence that I’ve heard from fellow youth tends to be overwhelmingly positive, in favor of phone bans. To be clear, youth definitely say that they prefer a class-only ban — meaning that they can still access their phones during free time at school, e.g., during lunch. And to me, that feels like a good compromise, a chance to let young people have autonomy, while also ensuring that they get the benefits of a little space from their phones. And indeed, when phone bans work, they do so much good, both in and out of the classroom, that, to me, they’re worth giving a try. So in a nutshell: I tend to support tailored classroom phone bans. But that’s just me…once again, I hope you’ll use my perspective as a jumping off point with which to explore your own thoughts and ideas.
I hope that that was a helpful and interesting look at phone bans. The movement only continues to grow stronger, so no doubt, you’ll be hearing a lot more about phone bans in the coming months and years…so keep your eyes peeled! And if those developments raise new questions for you, please, go ahead and take just a few minutes to share whatever internet/tech-related issues you’re wondering about here. Of course, you can also ask about anything non-ban-related…truly anything tech/internet-related is absolutely welcome. Thank you so much in advance for your contributing your perspectives — you da best.
Have a great week,
Trish