Bans cut phone pings, but grades barely move

cellphone bans – A new national study following more than 40,000 U.S. schools found cellphone activity drops sharply after Yondr magnetic pouches are adopted—but the research finds close to zero effects on test scores and attendance, even three years later. The findings clash

On campuses where students still reach for their phones out of habit, the change can feel immediate: the moment enforcement tightens, the pings start to disappear.

This month. researchers released a national study that tracked how cellphone use changed after schools adopted Yondr magnetic locking pouches. a system designed to restrict phones during the school day. Using data across more than 40. 000 schools in the United States. the researchers found cellphone activity dropped sharply after schools adopted the pouches. Cellphone “pings” from school grounds fell by 30 percent, and teachers reported far less nonacademic phone use in class.

Yet the moment families and educators look for the next line on the report—grades. attendance. safety—those gains do not arrive. The study found “close to zero” effects on test scores. attendance and online bullying. even three years after schools adopted the pouches. To make that comparison, the researchers compared Yondr schools to schools with similar demographics and academic performance.

At first glance, the results can feel like they should not exist. Last year, a Florida study reported small academic gains a year after statewide cellphone restrictions took effect in 2023.

The difference is partly how the studies were built. The researchers behind the Florida findings—at the University of Rochester and RAND—compared schools where student cellphone use had historically been high with schools where phone use had already been relatively low before statewide restrictions began. Their logic was straightforward: schools with heavier pre-ban cellphone use should experience a larger effect from the policy change.

The national Yondr study took almost the opposite route. Instead of focusing on schools’ past phone habits. it largely compared schools using one particularly strict form of enforcement against schools that often already had softer cellphone restrictions in place. Even in the comparison group. some schools still required students to keep phones tucked away in backpacks or out of sight during class.

So one study is asking what happens when phones are restricted in places that used them heavily. The other is asking what changes when strict enforcement is stacked on top of weaker rules.

Both sets of researchers, however, stressed in interviews that their results were more similar than the headlines suggest. The Florida study calculated that the academic gains—those that materialized in the second year after the ban—were less than a percentile point. In practical terms. the difference was described as moving a student from the 50th percentile. dead in the middle. to the 51st percentile. When gains are that small, the gap between “tiny” and “near-zero” can be more about measurement than meaning.

Even in the national Yondr findings, the study did not present the policy as a clean, frictionless win. Before behavior stabilized, both U.S. studies documented an initial increase in disciplinary incidents. Over time, though, both also found signs of nonacademic benefits, including improvements in school climate or student well-being.

That mixed picture is reflected far beyond the United States. International research on cellphone bans remains genuinely mixed.

In England, the first quantitative study of cellphone restrictions was published in 2016. It found cellphone restrictions improved exam scores primarily for low-achieving students. But a Swedish study in 2020 found no academic or behavioral benefits.

The Swedish team speculated that its results might reflect a key difference in how classrooms already worked. Sweden, the researchers noted, has a long history of integrating computers into classrooms. In the 1970s. Sweden was an early adopter of school technology. and students had already relied heavily on laptops and other digital devices during lessons before cellphones became ubiquitous. Another Swedish case study also found students were often using phones between assignments rather than during instructional time.

Since then. studies in Spain. Norway. Brazil and India have reported academic benefits from cellphone restrictions. though the gains varied widely. In India, a randomized trial produced some of the largest academic gains in the literature. Researchers there randomly assigned college students by field of study to store their phones in wooden cubbies before class. while others kept phones. Unlike many American universities, the Indian classrooms had few laptops or tablets. Removing phones, in effect, meant removing most digital distraction from the classroom.

One possible explanation for the disappointing U.S. results comes from the idea that banning phones may not remove digital distraction so much as redirect it. David Figlio. the lead author of the Florida study. said students often shift to texting. gaming or social media on laptops and tablets that remain permitted in school.

Another possibility. offered by Figlio as well. is that the harms of modern technology may not originate only during class time. Smartphones. he said. could be affecting sleep. study habits. sustained attention and reading stamina outside school hours—factors that a seven-hour school day ban cannot easily reverse.

Figlio put it plainly: “Cell phones still could be having a large effect on the diminishment of student achievement. even if cell phone bans are not turning this around by a tremendous amount.” He added that “Students could be cutting corners on their studying. or staying up very late and getting less sleep.”.

In the national study, Tom Dee, a Stanford education researcher who led the analysis, said the findings in the U.S. should not discourage schools from experimenting. He described the results as “sobering,” but urged schools and policymakers to keep refining how rules are designed and enforced.

“We should just continue to iterate, which is something we do too infrequently in education policy,” Dee said. “Let’s not move on to the next fad or the next flavor of the day. This issue is too important for us not to stay in the fight to try to figure out how to manage our children’s use of digital devices responsibly.”.

What emerges from the studies. taken together. is not agreement on whether cellphone bans transform learning—but a clearer picture of where the biggest shifts happen first. The pings fall. Nonacademic phone use in class drops. Discipline jolts, then steadies. Improvements show up in school climate or student well-being. The hard question—whether test scores rise in a meaningful way—remains stubbornly unresolved. and it keeps turning on the same thing: what students can still access when the phone is gone. and how much of the problem starts long before the school day begins.

cellphone bans Yondr pouches school technology student attention test scores disciplinary incidents digital distractions education policy