Drawing on approximately 68,000 survey submissions from teachers who work in about 17 percent of all public schools in the U.S., the nonpartisan research initiative Phones in Focus found that restrictive cellphone policies have not only improved students' performance in class, but also appear to enhance the way they interact with one another, according to a news release last week about the study's preliminary findings. A prior news release announcing the project said it would be led by psychologist and author Angela Duckworth, along with Stanford University economists Matt Gentzkow and Hunt Allcott.
The share of schools in the survey with bell-to-bell phone bans — meaning students are not allowed to use said devices during the school day — rose from 60 percent in the 2024-2025 school year to 74 percent thus far in 2025-2026. Notably, only about half of high schools in the national survey sample have full bell-to-bell bans, compared with about 9 in 10 elementary and middle schools, the release said.
According to a Center for American Progress report in February, 17 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted statewide bans on student cellphone use across all grades in the past two years, and 44 states plus Washington have taken legislative or policy action to address cellphone use in K-12 schools.
Moreover, in open-ended responses to the survey, educators described positive effects of phone bans, such as fewer discipline issues, more engagement and more social interaction, suggesting the policy changes are noticeable in day-to-day school life.
"We're seeing meaningful patterns emerge in our data that reflect the national conversation around phones in schools," Duckworth said in a public statement. "For example, teachers are seeing students talk in hallways face-to-face and engage in the kind of social learning that can't happen through a screen."
Educators who participated in the survey also highlighted that the policies have led to noisier lunchrooms and students "learning to socialize again," in the words of one teacher.
On the other hand, the survey revealed another tech-based culprit for student distractions: laptops. Educators who participated in the Phones in Focus sample estimated, on average, that 1 in 3 students use laptops at school for texting, social media or other non-academic purposes.
The recent news release said laptop use does not seem to vary based on whether a school has a phone ban or not, indicating that simply restricting phones has not reduced students’ off-task use of other personal devices. Thus, the report noted that laptops may be the “next challenge” for schools trying to limit distractions and manage students’ academic and social behaviors during the school day.
