Effects reportedly positive but research on the policies is limited
Policies restricting cellphone use in schools are gaining popularity in Washington and beyond amidst growing concern about the impact of technology on students’ academic performance, social skills and mental health.
The growing trend has been lauded by educators and policymakers as a low-cost, high-reward strategy to address those issues despite limited research on the impacts of such policies.
A brief from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction encourages schools to create uniform, schoolwide policies (rather than having educators adopt their own policies) by the start of the 2025–2026 school year. The brief follows both recommendations from UNESCO to limit cellphones in schools and advisories from the U.S. Surgeon General on youth mental health and the harms of social media.
The guidance asks schools to consider exceptions to the policy, such as approved instructional uses; accommodations for students with disabilities or medical issues; clear expectations on where and when phones can be used; and defined parameters for emergencies, such as how parents can contact a student.
“Our challenge to school leaders to revise their cell phone policies is part of a broader strategy to support our students’ mental health and prepare them for success in our digital world,” State Superintendent Chris Reykdal said in a press release.
What local schools are doing
The Anacortes School District is collecting information and feedback in response to the new guidance. Its current policy does not ban phones during the school day but instead encourages students to use their devices responsibly and follow the rules set by their individual schools and/or teachers. One of the district’s high schools is testing out shoe organizers to hold student phones during class time at teachers’ discretion and the other began using locked pouches for phones.
“The feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive, as they appreciate having a designated space for their devices while still being able to participate fully in their lessons,” said Anacortes High School principal Erin Duez. “We’re eager to see how this initiative enhances classroom engagement and are committed to making adjustments based on our observations and student and family input.”
Orcas Island School District’s long term policy has been that phones should be put away during the school day with some flexibility for the use of technology for educational purposes and individual schools’ decisions. This year, the high school also transitioned from allowing cellphone use during non–instructional time to creating no-device zones within the school where cellphone use is prohibited throughout the school day. The zones range from classrooms to the library and gym.
“We talked (to students) about it as an opportunity for them to demonstrate that they actually could manage their devices,” Orcas Island Middle and High School principal Kyle Freeman said. “The devices themselves are coming to school because people are giving them to bring the school. For the advocates of full school bans on technology, it seems like we should start that conversation outside of the schoolhouse and think about it as culturally and community wise.”
The San Juan Island School District has prohibited phones during class time at all schools, with Friday Harbor Elementary and Middle Schools going a step further to also ban cell phone use during non-instructional time.
Bellingham Public Schools implemented a similar policy. It also provides middle- and high-school students with a device they can use for writing, researching and web applications.
“Prior to this, students may have had use for their phone for some educational purposes at school; now there is little need for phones to ever be out during the school day, so it is easier to adhere to a consistent norm of ‘off and away’,” district spokesperson Dana Smith said.
Nooksack Valley School District planned to implement a no-phone policy at its middle school this fall, while its high school implemented a “one, two, three protocol” last year. As part of the protocol, teachers let students know what number they are in for the day: For one, phones are checked at the door; two, phones are kept during class and may be used as part of the lesson; and three, phones cannot be used and are off and put away.
Lopez Island School District prohibits cellphone use for elementary students during the school day and requires students to turn off their devices and leave them in their backpacks or in the office. Secondary students, meanwhile can use phones during lunch or for education purposes at the discretion of individual teachers.
A spokesperson for Mount Vernon School District declined to respond to questions about cellphone policies, but a policy on the district’s website regarding personal electronic devices states that student cellphones should be turned off during class time. The policy states it was last revised in 2012.
Differing viewpoints
Opponents of policies restricting cellphone use argue kids’ ability to access their phones during the day is a safety issue. Some parents have voiced concern about their children’s ability to contact family or first responders during an emergency like a school shooting or to document complaints a school may be ignoring. Others have highlighted that students with documented medical issues may need to use their phones as a health-monitoring device.
Polling on the issue suggests that while a majority of Americans support prohibiting cellphones during class periods, there is far less support for full-day bans.
A recent Pew Research poll found that 68% of American adults support prohibiting middle and high school students from using cellphones during class. In contrast, only a third supported a full-day ban.
Support is even higher among educators. The National Education Association, the country’s largest educator union, reports that 90% of educators support an in-class ban and 83% support an all-day ban. Two-thirds said they opposed leaving cellphone use up to individual teachers.
Emerging research
There have been few studies on the effectiveness of these policies, which makes it difficult to definitively say what impacts cellphone bans have on students.
A Swedish study found that mobile phone bans had no impact on student performance. Björn Tyrefors is one of the study’s researchers and works at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics and the University of Gothenburg. He said cellphone use and other bad behaviors not conducive to learning aren’t allowed in good classrooms, regardless of a ban. While a ban may remove cellphone use, he said other negative behaviors that may impact learning would remain.
“I was skeptical that a ban could have large effects, even though cell phone use most likely is bad in the classroom,” Tyrefors said in an email. “Often bans of behavior (are) nice for politicians, do not cost a cent. However, (improving) education typically is costly and involves vast investments.”
A Spanish study, meanwhile, found that cellphone bans in schools not only reduced bullying incidents among teenagers but also positively impacted students’ academic performance. The impact on academic performance, the researchers said, was equivalent to 0.6-0.8 years of learning in math and almost one year in science. A study in the UK found similar results on student performance.
“There was a social concern, this idea about whether or not we should allow kids to bring the mobiles to the schools,” said Pilar Beneito Lopez, one of the study’s authors and an economics professor at the University of Valencia. “In terms of the feelings we had, we were not very much surprised. In fact, it was sort of what we were expecting from the very beginning: that the effect of removing the mobiles from the classroom should be, if any, positive.”
Anecdotal evidence from Washington schools that have already implemented cellphone restrictions seems to support Beneito’s research.
“Some of our schools require that cell phones be left in lockers and backpacks while others use specific pouches in each classroom,” San Juan Island School District District spokesperson Diana Fearn said in an email. “By limiting cell phone usage in our schools, we have noticed increased academic engagement and signs of better mental health in our students.”
Likewise Orcas Island High School has seen positive results after creating no-phone zones in its school.
“I’ve seen a nice impact where there are maybe kids who would have had their device out, who are instead sitting and talking to each other or talking lunch line or those kinds of things,” Freeman said. “I think putting this rule in place has also maybe raised their consciousness about it, and having the conversations we’ve had about it. … I think there’s an addiction element to this that we have to address as a culture.”
University of Washington psychology professor Lucía Magis-Weinberg hopes to bridge those anecdotal findings with empirical research. She and a team of researchers are studying cellphone bans in Washington schools through anonymous surveys of students, parents and educators as well as in-depth interviews.
Magis-Weinberg and her team are still in the early stages, but she hopes their work will be able to offer an in-depth, nuanced view of the policies.
“We’re learning that the policy looks very different hour by hour, so you might have teachers who ask the kids to put the phones in their desk, for example, or you might have teachers who don’t care. …Unless you have that level of understanding about the school policies or the classroom policies, it’s very hard to draw conclusions,” she said. “I think that’s been one of the limitations of the few papers that are out there.”
In the meantime, however, Magis-Weinberg says her prior research on how technology impacts teens leads her to believe to believe policies restricting phone use would have impacts on student distraction.
“I really hope that we see distraction going down; that’s where we would expect the biggest change,’ she said, adding that her team also hopes to dive into whether the policies positively impact students’ social skills and sense of belonging. “These are some of the hypotheses, and we’re very open to see what we find.”
— By Sydnee Chapman
Also read in Salish Current: “Review: ‘The Anxious Generation,” by Jonathan Haidt,” April 11, 2024