A new RCT on banning smartphones in the classroom

Widespread smartphone bans are being implemented in classrooms worldwide, yet their causal effects on student outcomes remain unclear. In a randomized controlled trial involving nearly 17,000 students, we find that mandatory in-class phone collection led to higher grades — particularly among lower-performing, first-year, and non-STEM students — with an average increase of 0.086 standard deviations. Importantly, students exposed to the ban were substantially more supportive of phone-use restrictions, perceiving greater benefits from these policies and displaying reduced preferences for unrestricted access. This enhanced student receptivity to restrictive digital policies may create a self-reinforcing cycle, where positive firsthand experiences strengthen support for continued implementation. Despite a mild rise in reported fear of missing out, there were no significant changes in overall student well-being, academic motivation, digital usage, or experiences of online harassment. Random classroom spot checks revealed fewer instances of student chatter and disruptive behaviors, along with reduced phone usage and increased engagement among teachers in phone-ban classrooms, suggesting a classroom environment more conducive to learning. Spot checks also revealed that students appear more distracted, possibly due to withdrawal from habitual phone checking, yet, students did not report being more distracted. These results suggest that in-class phone bans represent a low-cost, effective policy to modestly improve academic outcomes, especially for vulnerable student groups, while enhancing student receptivity to digital policy interventions.

That is from a recent paper by Alp Sungu, Pradeep Kumar Choudhury, and Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen.  Note with grades there is “an average increase of 0.086 standard deviations.”  I have no problem with these policies, but it mystifies me why anyone would put them in their top five hundred priorities, or is that five thousand?  Here is my earlier post on Norwegian smart phone bans, with comparable results.