Unlocking the Truth: Do School Phone Bans Really Improve Mental Health and Academic Success?

Recent research in The Lancet Regional Health Europe looked at how school phone policies affect the mental health of teenagers. This topic is important as many adolescents are heavy smartphone users, often spending around four hours a day on their devices and even more on social media.

While a small amount of smartphone use—up to two hours—can be good for kids, too much can lead to lower mental wellbeing. This might harm their ability to learn, be active, and get enough sleep. Yet, most of the current studies are not strong enough. Many rely on broad data rather than direct studies, and they often don’t consider differences based on age or gender.

Study Overview

This study involved 1,227 students aged 12 to 15 from 30 secondary schools. Researchers wanted to see if school phone policies had any effect on mental health and academic performance.

The team looked at how much time students spent on their phones and social media, along with their physical activity levels, mental health, sleep quality, classroom behavior, and academic success.

Key Findings

Students in schools with strict phone policies used their phones for an average of just 10 minutes during school hours. In contrast, those in schools with more relaxed rules used their phones for about an hour. Similarly, social media use was 2 minutes in strict schools compared to 30 minutes in permissive ones.

Across all students, there was a weak link between how much time they spent on their phones during school and their overall phone use outside of school. Students typically used their phones for about 1.7 hours on weekdays and over two hours on weekends.

The study found that more phone and social media use was linked to higher levels of depression, anxiety, and problematic social media habits. Moreover, these increased usage rates negatively impacted physical activity, sleep, and overall classroom behavior. Surprisingly, the self-reported mental health or social media habits didn’t change significantly with in-school restrictions.

Academic performance and classroom disruptions did not differ between schools that restricted phone use and those that did not. Thus, the lack of improvement in mental wellbeing could be attributed to no notable changes in overall phone and social media usage.

Conclusions

There is no evidence that restrictive school policies improve overall phone and social media use or adolescent mental wellbeing.

While phone and social media use are significantly linked to poorer mental and academic health, simply implementing restrictive school policies may not be enough. Better strategies are needed to effectively support adolescents’ mental health.