Policymakers rightly worry that phone use in classrooms harms students, as recent bans keep piling up, but the far more pressing concern is that spending time on legislation will distract policymakers from finding—and then addressing—the real reason students are disengaged, absent, and in worsening mental health. Legislation banning phone use in schools will not solve those problems—nor will it meaningfully improve student outcomes as policymakers intend.
Studies from international organizations like the OECD note that phones disrupt students’ attention, particularly in math classes, leading to poorer performance and lower grades. 30 percent of students who use phones were distracted by them, and 25 percent were distracted when someone else used one. The National Center for Academic Statistics also reports that public school leaders see a negative impact from cell phone use in classrooms. But a closer look reveals these effects, both in correlational strength and in overall magnitude, are much more modest than they appear.
A study from Western Michigan University reported a measly, negative correlation of -0.17 in college students and -0.12 in K-12 students between academic achievement and phone use. In psychology, and more generally in statistics, correlations below ±0.3 are considered weak, far from the -1.0 that would indicate a strong inverse relationship. In this case, the relationship between academic achievement and phone use fall well below that benchmark of being meaningful, indicating the negative association was very weak.
Similarly, a study from the London School of Economics found that school phone bans led to a modest improvement in student performance, with test scores increasing just a little bit from the average (0.0641 standard deviations), with the greatest gains among low-performing students. This minuscule shift underscores a limited effect on overall academic outcomes. Additional evidence in other studies shows weak effects of phone bans and no significant differences between schools banning phones and schools that do not.
By statistical standards, these numbers might be precise in their method of calculation, but they are not numbers of real-world significance. Importantly, these findings show that while phone use may contribute to certain trends on the margin, they are not the primary driver of student disengagement or distress.
Even if bans modestly reduce in-class distractions, they fail to address what happens outside school. Without parental controls or broader strategies for healthy technology use, students remain just as exposed to distractions at home. Bans therefore solve the problem incompletely, if at all, while creating a false sense of progress as systemic issues go unaddressed.
Despite the mixed evidence, most states are moving forward with policies banning phones from schools. 38 states already have active phone-related laws or policies. Four of them enforce strict phone bans in classrooms. Another 27 require schools to implement and enforce policies at their discretion. Five states have advisory policies, leaving enforcement entirely up to individual schools. Finally, 2 states offer incentive-based programs, providing funding to schools in creating and implementing their own phone restriction policies.
While all this legislation shows the real concern from different states, to get the answer to why student achievement and mental health are dropping, policymakers need to start asking different questions. Here are some examples: Are students disengaged because teaching methods never changed, but technology has? Why do students feel they are learning things that will not be relevant when they grow up? Are we providing teachers with the incentives they need, or are burnout and low morale leaving them unable to fully engage with their students and the material they teach? How can policy change to address the answers to these questions?
An alternative route is to explore how technology can be integrated into classrooms to deliver more personalized, student-centered learning experiences. Notably, several states considering phone restrictions are also advancing media literacy initiatives, signaling opportunities to align technology with education rather than framing it as inherently harmful. States with discretionary or advisory policies, in particular, remain well positioned to move beyond bans alone and adopt balanced approaches that promote responsible device use while enhancing engagement and learning outcomes. But even with more exposure to technology there should be a proper evaluation for its proven effectiveness, since some studies show that technology based education does not translate to significantly better student outcomes.
As growing public pressure mounts, policymakers should remember that the evidence paints an inconclusive and limited picture about the effect of phone use in classrooms. A better solution would be to invest in solutions that modernize teaching methods and integrate technology in purposeful ways. Action is not always progress—and in the case of school phone bans, it risks being a distraction from the reforms students truly need. The far more pressing question is not simply how students are using their phones, but why students are suffering.
Pablo Garcia Quint is a technology policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, follow us on X @ConsumerPal.