Mobile phones are locked into Yondr pouches before people enter an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum on Nov. 22, 2019, in New York City. AFP via Getty Images
As schools across the country have steadily been locking up student phones during class time, a new Stanford University-led study found the policy isn’t doing much good, at least not in the short term.
Still, researchers said they’re not ready to abandon the idea of prohibiting phones in schools.
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The study, published last month by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, examined how phone use in schools affects student well-being, attendance, behavior and test scores. The institute partnered with San Francisco-founded Yondr, the company that makes the magnetic, sealable pouches that lock students’ phones away for the entire school day.
The research team, which comprised researchers from Stanford University, Duke University, University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan, tracked 43,000 middle schools and high schools over a three-year period, comparing schools that adopted Yondr phone pouches with those that did not.
To some degree, no-phone policies were beneficial: In-class phone use fell sharply, from 61% of students to 13%, with researchers using GPS phone pings to confirm a significant drop in phone activity. Teacher satisfaction with the cellphone policy also increased from 26% to 75%. But once phones were locked up, the researchers found that it didn’t initially improve students’ behavior as they had expected. It also produced its own set of problems.
Thomas Dee, one of the Stanford researchers, told SFGATE that researchers only started seeing clear benefits after schools had used phone bans for two to three years, a finding he called “sobering.”
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“I think many of us had perhaps naively thought that reducing phone use in schools would lead to clear and meaningful and immediate gains in certain student outcomes, and we’re not quite seeing that,” Dee said.
FILE: Yondr pouches are seen at an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. AFP via Getty Images
‘Unhappy and disruptive’
In the first year of pouch use in schools, researchers found that students spent less time on their phones, but schools also saw more disciplinary issues and a decline in student well-being, with suspensions increasing by 16%. The study also determined that during the first year of Yondr pouches, schools didn’t see any major improvements in test scores, attendance or cyberbullying.
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Researchers believe that the students, especially younger ones, may have turned to more disruptive behavior when they no longer had access to their phones. Dee also noted that these outcomes may be influenced by how teachers and principals implement and communicate the new policies.
“One conjecture is that this resembles, to some degree, withdrawal symptoms,” he said. “Students are unhappy and disruptive the moment their phones are taken away.”
To assess student well-being, the researchers looked at national survey data where students self-reported their feelings. The data revealed that students’ sense of well-being initially declined after phones were locked up. By the second and third year, though, students’ well-being started to rebound. And according to the report, the disciplinary issues began to fade after the first year, and students’ sense of well-being later exceeded what it was before the phone bans.
“There’s clearly some adjustment going on, enforcing bans and students adjusting to that new reality,” Dee said.
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The academic effects of the phone bans, though, are “close to zero,” the study says. High schoolers had slight improvements in math, but middle schoolers had “small negative effects.”
“We find little evidence of effects on school attendance, self-reported classroom attention, or perceived online bullying,” the study read.
The early adjustments and mixed outcomes are playing out in real time across California, including in the Bay Area, where several districts have implemented Yondr pouches.
A nationwide problem
Several Bay Area schools have implemented full-on bans, including Mt. Diablo High and Ygnacio Valley High in Concord and the San Mateo Union High School District, where administrators say it helped students be more attentive in class. Some schools, like those in San Jose, haven’t adopted Yondr pouches, but officials have still tightened the rules, requiring students to keep phones turned off and out of sight all day, including during lunch.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom has backed efforts to limit phone use in schools.
In 2024, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3216, bipartisan legislation that requires schools and districts to limit or restrict cellphone use by July 1 of this year. According to the Stanford study, about two-thirds of U.S. states have passed some type of cellphone ban.
Dee said it’s important to note that researchers are still in “early days” of studying cellphone bans and their effects on students. He noted there are no “quick fixes,” and he worries that some of the discourse around the study may be “a little too reactive and reductive and not taking more of a continuous improvement mindset.”
“I would not view these results, even though they are sobering, as a reason to walk away from these reforms,” he said.
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He said the results show schools can successfully reduce phone use, but more research is needed on how bans should be designed and how educators can be better supported in enforcing them. During the study, the team also realized that as researchers continue to study youth development in the digital age as a “national priority,” the topic might need to be considered on a wider scale, including looking at artificial intelligence tools, Dee added.