How School Cell Phone Bans Are Changing Student Behavior

Dan Loney: We know the value, but also the impact, that cellphones have on our kids. This past year saw numerous school districts announcing new rules about preventing the use of cellphones by kids, by students, during the school day. With those in place, what does that mean for how the dynamics of the school day are going for students?

That research is being conducted by our guest today, Angela Duckworth, along with a group of her colleagues. It is a “Phones In Focus” study. Angela is professor of operations, information and decisions here at the Wharton School as well as co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative.

Angela, great to catch up again. This is the second conversation we're having on this topic as this research continues to develop. Let me circle back for people that didn't join us the first time and talk about what was the basis behind doing the research into this in the first place.

Angela Duckworth: I'm a psychologist who's been studying self-control and grit and achievement for her entire career. I'm also a former high school and middle school math teacher. And finally, I'm a mom. I have two daughters who are now in their early 20s. And for all of those reasons, I felt called to do a study on cellphones. in particular, cellphones and young people in schools. My own daughter said, “Mom, you know, this is what you trained for, like your whole life. You learned to become a social scientist to help kids, so you have to study what's going on with kids and phones.” And in particular, academic achievement.

I should say, when we talk about schools, it's not just academic achievement. It's also social development. What effect having phones with you all the time has on your ability to develop friendships, or relationships with mentors, like teachers.

Loney: With these school districts that are obviously changing these rules and trying to make sure that students aren't relying on their cellphones during the school day, what are we starting to see in terms of how that daily relationship is working not only with their classmates, but with the teachers as well?

Duckworth: We have a survey. It's still live. If you're listening to this conversation and you know or you are a schoolteacher in a U.S. public K-12 school, you're welcome to take the five-minute survey at PhonesInFocus.org.

Here's what we're learning. We have over 100,000 teachers — that's a significant percentage of teachers in the United States — who have done exactly that. And what we're finding, first of all, is a sea change in policy from last year to this year. Even just in the few months that have passed since last academic year to this academic year, what we're finding is that schools across this country are getting more strict with their cellphones. They're more likely, for example, to have a bell-to-bell policy, meaning that students at that school are not allowed to use their phone from the first bell to the last bell.

And we're seeing most of that change happen in, for example, the middle and high schools. Because elementary schools typically have stricter policies, so they were already strict. But we're seeing American high schools, for example, shift to this new stricter policy.

The second thing that we're finding is that the stricter the policy, the happier the teacher. So, these teachers 100,000 teachers are saying overwhelmingly that they prefer to teach in school, they're more satisfied teaching in schools that have stricter policies.

And finally, when we ask these teachers, what percentage of kids from 0% to 100% would you guess are on their phones for non-academic reasons during class? And we find that it's the same pattern. In the stricter schools, kids are less likely to be on their phones.

Here's one thing I want to emphasize. It's not just when kids are allowed to be on their phones. It's where schools let those students keep their phones. You can be a bell-to-bell school and say, “You know what? In our school, you can't use your phone all day, but you can keep it anywhere you want.” And we're finding that that matters. When kids have their phone in their hand or in their back pocket or even in their backpack, they're more tempted to look at their phones than if it's in their hallway locker, it's in a centralized place, etc.

Loney: One of the other things that you noted in the most recent tranche of research is that not only do you have to focus on the potential use of cellphones, but it's also the laptops. Because so many students are doing the majority of their work for school on their laptop. I know my kids are. Obviously, there has to be a temptation there while you're doing your work on the laptop that, “Well, I can slide my social media onto a different screen and have both at the same time.”

Duckworth: Right. One tab for doing my calculus and another tab for looking up Love Story. It's the co-location of academic work and temptation on the same exact device, literally within pixels of each other, within a swipe of each other, within a click of each other. The analogy I would give you is it's like asking kids to eat a salad in the middle of a bakery, right? You can do it. But there are a lot of other things that you would prefer.

I feel the same way about myself. With no disrespect to my colleagues. Because as you know, I love this university with all my heart and soul. But I have to go to boring meetings, right? Who doesn't? And if I have my laptop, the temptation to stop taking notes on the meeting and to just go peek at my inbox. Look up that thing that I was looking up five minutes before the meeting. It is so strong.

Therefore, we are finding in our data the same pattern with kids. I don't know if it's therefore, but I'll just say that we added a question this school year. I told you that the survey started last year. We're extending it. We added a question, which is, “What percentage of students do you suspect are doing personal things like texting or social media from their laptop in class?” And a striking 1 in 3 students, according to American teachers, are currently using their laptops for non-academic purposes during the school day. As a professor — again, I love my students, literally love them. But if I let them use their laptops in my class, I think the percentage would be similar, if not higher.

Loney: Yeah. You talked a moment ago about the component of mental health. I think it's a discussion a lot of people are having, but maybe it hasn't been fully followed through, as to just how these devices are impacting the mental health, especially of our children. When you're in middle school or high school, your brain and your body are still developing.

Duckworth: We all went through childhood and adolescence. And many of us will remember that it was not the easiest period of our lives. We were developing a sense of self-concept, self-esteem. What's my niche? What's my role? What's my status? Am I liked? Do I belong here? Do I have friends? We might recall that it was a fraught period.

One of the things that really worries me as a psychologist who has worked with adolescents for her career is that now we have this device that enables you to not look at another person in the eye, to not have conversation, to not get to know someone. I mean, who enjoys those awkward first opening conversations with another human? Maybe complete extroverts. But for a lot of us, there is a little awkwardness. And what research is showing, separate from the study that I just described, is that face-to-face, in-person interaction, particularly among young people, is on a steep decline.

I think that is very related to another worrisome trend, which is we are really seeing a crisis in mental health in young people. I'll speak about Gen Z adults because that's the most documented. As you know, we are researching the same generation. This is, in some ways, the least happy generation that we have documented in human history. And if you ask the question why, there are multiple reasons. Political polarization doesn't help. There's climate change and so forth. But I have to believe that the astronomic increase in the use of phones and social media have at least contributed to a crisis of well-being in our young people.

Loney: We're talking about this in the scope of the students and the teachers. But to a degree, this is a much larger conversation outside of the schools. Do the parents need to have and play an important role in this process as well?

Duckworth: There is hope. I know painting this picture of technology and its inevitable march forward — the co-location of temptation and virtue in the same device. It does make you want to throw up your hands and say, “Well, I'm helpless to change things.” But I do think there's hope. And the reason why is that we are influenced by our surroundings and we are most influenced by our immediate surroundings. So yes, there are macro-cultural trends that you're not going to have a lot of control over. But you do have control over your local environment. So, think locally.

For example, if you are a parent, you can choose which school to send your child to, because that school will have a culture, and that school's culture is going to influence your child's development much more than American culture at large. Same thing for the home. When we raised our two daughters, my husband, Jason, and I would often get, as so many parents do, “Well, my friend's family does it this way. They watch TV all day. They have junk food. Why can't we have Oreos?” And we said to our daughters, “Because you're a Duckworth. And in the Duckworth family, we do things the Duckworth family way.”

I think every leader understands this. Every parent, at some level, has an intuition. But I just want to empower those of us who don't like the cultural trends and say, “You know what? I'm going to think locally and I'm going to act locally.”

Loney: What's the next step in the research that you're doing?

Duckworth: We are collecting data through the end of this academic year. So just for a couple more months, teachers have an opportunity to share their perspective. What we're going to do with all that data is match it. And then we're working with the National Governors Association, and the vast majority of states are formal partners in this. So, our 50 states in the United States.

What we're going to do through these partnerships is match our survey data to records on attendance, to records on standardized achievement test scores. We also are going to look at survey measures of students' well-being and engagement in class. We're going to take all this data and ask the question, which policies in the United States for cellphones in schools are the best policies with the best long-term student outcomes?