A team led by Wharton professor and psychologist Angela Duckworth is only a few months into yearlong research on cell phones in public schools, but the preliminary findings are clear: The stricter the policy, the better.
More than 20,000 public school educators nationwide have responded to the Phones in Focus survey since it was launched in April to understand the broad effects of cell phone use on student achievement and well-being. The key finding so far is that school-wide bans that keep phones out of the classroom are linked with fewer distractions.
“What we’re seeing in the 20,000-plus responses is an important pattern, which is the stricter the policy, the happier the teacher. The stricter the policy, the less distraction there is for students in terms of their academic work,” Duckworth said in an interview with This Week in Business.
Duckworth, who is a professor in the Department of Operations, Information and Decisions as well as faculty co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative, is working with Stanford University economists Matt Gentzkow and Hunt Allcott on Phones in Focus. The nonpartisan project is sponsored by the National Governors Association with the ultimate goal of drafting evidence-based policy recommendations to manage cell phone use in schools.
“Not only is school cell phone policy an urgent topic, it may be one of the last bipartisan topics in the universe,” Duckworth said. “We have not found the educator who does not care about this issue and who doesn’t feel we should be doing more than what we’re doing right now.”
The Collective Action Trap
Duckworth said that for years teachers were given the discretion to set their own agenda in the classroom, including whether they allowed cell phones. But that autonomy has led to what scientists call a “collective action trap,” where individual decision-making is outmatched by the scope of the problem.
“What teachers have been saying in our survey data is they need help,” she said. “They can’t just legislate cell phone policy as a teacher on their own, separate from what the school is doing as a whole.”
According to Education Week, at least 31 states and the District of Columbia require school districts to ban or restrict cell phones. Of those states, 22 have a bell-to-bell ban, which means students aren’t allowed to use their smartphones during the school day. Disruptive cell phone use is most associated with teenagers, yet the preliminary survey results find middle and high schools have the least restrictive policies. One out of four high schools has a bell-to-bell ban, compared with three out of four middle schools.
“When you worry, you worry about teenagers,” Duckworth said. “It is in the teen years when students need the most support and when temptations are strongest that we give them the least support.”
“Not only is school cellphone policy an urgent topic, it may be one of the last bipartisan topics in the universe.”— Angela Duckworth
Helping Schools Improve Cell Phone Policy
Organizations ranging from the National Institutes of Health to the American Psychological Association have documented the rising mental health crisis among America’s youth, who are struggling with anxiety, depression and loneliness at rates much higher than previous generations. Duckworth said screen time is a factor — the more kids interact with their phones, the less they interact with each other and the world around them. In the survey, teachers and principals reported that all-day cell phone bans brought positive changes, including kids making more eye contact and conversation, especially during recess and lunch times.
“Before, you could hear a pin drop [in the cafeteria] because the kids would just be silently scrolling with their thumb and shoving food into their mouths,” Duckworth said. “I don’t want to sound like a Luddite because I think the role of technology is complicated, but I worry about young people not interacting with each other, not having realistic, sensible ideas about what is expected of them, and I worry about their attention.”
The Phones in Focus team will continue to collect survey responses throughout the school year that they will use to measure against academic standards, attendance, test scores, student engagement, and well-being. They will apply the results to policy recommendations that can help districts set cell phone guidelines for the 2025-2026 school year. Duckworth said she hopes to receive 100,000 responses, and she particularly wants to hear from middle and high schools. She invited every public educator in America to go to the website and participate.
“If we really accomplish that goal, then we will have a census of what is going on in the country,” she said.
