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Smartphone bans in the classroom might not be the panacea that governments and school administrations want them to be, according to a recently published study. As first reported by The New York Times, the National Bureau of Economic Research will publish a study called The Effects of School Phone Bans: National Evidence From Lockable Phones, which concluded that cellphone bans had "consistently close to zero" effect on test scores.
The study sampled phone location data from more than 40,000 schools from 2019 to 2026 and showed that there was a temporary rise in disciplinary incidents and a short-term drop in student well-being, which was attributed to short-term disruption. However, the study revealed that student well-being improved in later years and disciplinary actions fell in the long term. With little to no impact on test scores, the researchers also said the ban showed "little evidence of effects on school attendance, self-reported classroom attention, or perceived online bullying."
The study clarified that there could be longer-term effects that haven't been observed yet since the results only looked at outcomes that went three years beyond the ban's adoption at most. Another study from the UK also showed that cellphone bans didn't impact overall screen times, nor did it have much impact on student well-being. However, many countries have been adopting school-wide bans on smartphones, as seen with France's new restriction that went into effect in September and South Korea's limitations for elementary and middle schools as of 2026.
