By CHRISTOPHER FERGUSON | REAL CLEAR WIRE
Cell phone bans in schools are all the rage. Recently, New York became the fourth state to embark on one, as part of a budget deal for the coming school year. For many adults, the bans make intuitive sense: Who wants kids distracted on their phones while the teacher is teaching? Maybe getting rid of them could even reduce bullying or improve youth mental health? Phone Free New York founder Raj Goyle, while speaking of New York’s prospective ban, claimed, “If you look at the data in schools that have one … test scores rise, bullying decreases, depression decreases.” But is that true?
Given acclamations from the schools that have implemented them, you’d think so. Orange County schools in Florida made headlines for being one of the first and most restrictive districts to implement a ban on cell phones. Florida passed a statewide ban in 2023, but Orange County, with Orlando as its seat, went further, banning phones for the entire school day, not just during classes.
Within months of Orange County’s ban taking effect, educators claimed to see “remarkable change,” including fewer fights and better focus in class. But it’s rare to see any intervention have such a rapid effect. To examine whether school data supported these claims, I put in a public records request for the hard numbers.
The request was for numbers on serious bullying incidents, overall high school and middle school grade point averages, student mental health referrals, and suspensions due to cell phone use.
Data was provided by the district’s manager of public records. The school district had data only on the most serious bullying incidents, which rose sharply during the year of the ban, from 2 to 12. Certainly, many more minor bullying incidents are missed in this data, but the schools apparently have no data to suggest they decreased. Unfortunately, the district did not have data on assaults, so it is unclear which data support the district’s public statements about fewer fights. Grade-point averages largely remained static (high school GPA improved slightly, going from 2.82 to 2.95, whereas middle school GPA barely budged from 2.84 to 2.88).
But mental health referrals increased rather than decreased. The number of screenings for mental health increased by one hundred, whereas referrals increased by nearly 1,500. Disciplinary offenses involving phones increased, perhaps not surprisingly, but – most worrying – this included 662 reported suspensions. Suspensions are well known to be harmful to youth, reducing academic engagement, and are even associated with adult arrests.
Thus, taken together, these statistics suggest outcomes that are mainly static or negative, including real harm in the form of suspensions. The numbers contrast with the rosy picture portrayed by school officials.
A public-records comparison of Orange County’s ban with Rhode Island’s Providence County turned up similar numbers, with data here provided by City of Providence Public Records. Over the same two-year period, bullying got worse, GPAs remained static, mental health referrals increased, as did cell phone discipline incidents. A caveat is that Providence County school authorities could not pinpoint the start of the ban, so this shouldn’t be considered as neat a pre/post comparison as the internal comparison for Orange County alone.
Schools in Cranston, R.I, which do not have a cell phone ban, and where some schools encourage cell phone use in education, appeared to be a better comparison with Orange County. Records produced by Norma Cole, the assistant superintendent, showed the outcomes were more mixed. Bullying increased, as with the other schools. High school GPAs actually increased (an apparent reflection of the school’s encouragement of cell phone use in education) though middle school GPAs decreased slightly. There were more mental health referrals, but fewer students actually received services. Overall, Cranston schools had somewhat better outcomes.
This is just descriptive data taken from a small number of schools. From such data, it’s not possible to say that cell phone policies are increasing bullying or mental health issues. However, the figures do warn us that increased suspensions could cause harm. We can also see tantalizing clues that cellphone bans, at very least, do not appear to help, though it’s worth noting cell phones may have some value in emergencies such as shootings or fires. Broad claims of success often made by teachers and school administrators don’t match the data.
A recent study in Britain found that cell phone bans in schools, including the most restrictive variety, do not improve student grades, behavior, or mental health. A recently published research review from Queensland University of Technology likewise concluded that current evidence is unable to support the effectiveness of cellphone bans. One recent Florida study found that kids with smartphones are actually healthier than those without, albeit teaching kids how to use them wisely is also important.
As noted two years ago in RealClearPolitics, the evidence linking new technology and smartphones to outcomes such as mental health is weak, so the failure of cell phone bans should not be a surprise. The current public records request data fits those other observations. The cellphone ban debate is a reminder that, often, what we think should be helpful to kids and what actually is helpful can be two very different things. The research review from the Queensland University of Technology ultimately concluded, “Our consolidated findings showed little to no conclusive evidence that ‘one-size-fits-all’ mobile phone bans in schools resulted in improved academic outcomes, mental health and wellbeing and reduced cyberbullying” and recommended media/digital literacy instead to help youth cultivate their online experiences.
Christopher J. Ferguson is a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Florida and author of “Catastrophe! The Psychology of Why Good People Make Bad Situations Worse.”
Say it ain’t so, Joe! Our legislators are just now bragging about how much this is going to increase student achievement. Easier to put that into law than something like attendance or other changes that would actually make a difference!
This should have been done by local districts.
Of course educators didn’t want to be the bad guys.!!
You only need to interview teachers to understand how disruptive cell phones are to the classroom. Beyond the terrible, negative influence these disruptions have on the classroom, the mental health of children is being damaged by these cell phone.
Credible research- not coming from the front groups/individuals representing the cell phone industry shows these shocking stats:
“To break that down further, children ages 0-8 spend around 2.5 hours per day and ages 8-10 spend around 6 hours per day in front of a screen. That number increases with age, as children 11-14 spend about 9 hours a day on screens, and teenagers 15-18 have an average screen time of 7.5 hours.”
Kids need adults to provide proper guidance and instruction so they have the best chance to make it. But in Alaska, with no effective bans on these miserable phones, our kids are finishing at the bottom of the 50 states in standardized test scores for math, science and reading. There are large school districts where not a single school has the majority of the kids at grade level for math, science, or reading.
Reforms are critical. Ejecting the cell phones from the classroom is a no brainer.
Thank you for publishing this. It goes against the expected outcomes. If facts challenge our personal narrative, we need to deal with them correctly, not dismiss them or attack the messenger, as one side of the political spectrum seems keen to do too often.
But to be fair, my left-leaning publications commonly accuse the Right of being the intolerant, screaming, burning, and destroying side of the aisle if anything doesn’t agree with them. I don’t observe that as a common theme on the Right. Thus, I am glad Suzanne let this be published.
It was interesting to see liberals and conservatives alike in the AKLEG promote banning cellphones while admittedly not even following their own rules against phone use on the house floor. I believe they are out of touch with what happens in schools and those involved in education like to try and paint a rosy picture of what happens in schools but there is a lot of crap that happens too. There are mature students who only use their phones when necessary and punishing those who don’t abuse the privilege is wrong. As the author pointed out when there are emergencies and such there are no phones available to call for help in the world of cell phone bans.
People need to understand, it’s no longer an educational institution. The parents have lives and just need babysitter’s and the teachers want the paycheck and most of all, the kiddies are there to text their friends.
Like most things there are pluses and minuses to cell phones in school:
https://mustreadalaska.com/battle-of-the-bulge-dimond-high-teacher-placed-on-administrative-leave-investigated/
I wonder how we survived before cell phones were invented.
We have computers in classes and there’s no need for cell phones in schools, unless there really is a need, as in having a medical reason.
Professor Chris might be on to something!
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If you can use your cellphone to Google anything worth knowing and get AI to do all your thinking and writing, who needs teachers?
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Then who needs teachers’ unions, brick-and-mortar schools, or any part of Alaska’s education industry who were just rewarded with truckloads of money for doing what, exactly?
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Mandatory cellphone laws for children and illegal aliens who pass as children …if stats don’t support school cell phone bans, why not make every child under age 30 have one?
There are many more issues that need addressed regarding students inability to read a tape measure after receiving a high school “diploma”.
Cell phone usage is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you aren’t going to ban them in schools, then just do away with schools all together. Let the parents raise them and educate them. Save the taxpayers money and close the schools.
We had higher scores, better behavior and more success before cell phones. When there were emergencies (rare) people called schools directly. People had common sense back then and we didn’t need AI to tell us how to tie our shoes.
The collapse of society has begun, and this technology is the reason.
This is simply not true. I invite anyone that thinks this is a bad idea to go to a school and watch the kids. They should be banned and hopefully it will stick. People complain that schools need to do better, but then parents can choose to go on extended vacations, they want their child to have a cell phone that distracts them, people oppose high stakes exams that determine if children are able to move forward or graduate, and our state has no way to enforce attendance or guidence on attendance. This article is dead wrong. I challenge anyone to find a study that says phones in school are a good idea. You will find thousands that prove they are not.
The day ASD determines cell phones are okay in middle school classrooms, is the day I’ll know I’m not.
– 7/8 Classroom Teacher
I’d think some kind of a reasonable compromise would be pretty easy to manage. Phones could be kept out of classrooms, but OK on breaks or lunch. For a lot of jobs, phone use is not allowed while working, but is fine otherwise. That sort of thing might also help to prepare kids for life as adults.