Mobile ban in schools not improving grades or behaviour, study suggests

Banning phones in schools is not linked to pupils getting higher grades or having better mental wellbeing, the first study of its kind suggests.

Students’ sleep, classroom behaviour, exercise or how long they spend on their phones overall also seems to be no different for schools with phone bans and schools without, the academics found.

But they did find that spending longer on smartphones and social media in general was linked with worse results for all of those measures.

The first study in the world to look at school phone rules alongside measures of pupil health and education feeds into a fierce debate that has played out in homes and schools in recent years.

The University of Birmingham’s findings, peer-reviewed and published by the Lancet’s journal for European health policy, external, compared 1,227 students and the rules their 30 different secondary schools had for smartphone use at break and lunchtimes.

The schools were chosen from a sample of 1,341 mainstream state schools in England.

The paper says schools restricting smartphone use did not seem to be seeing their intended improvements on health, wellbeing and focus in lessons.

But the research did find a link between more time on phones and social media, and worse mental wellbeing and mental health, less physical activity, poorer sleep, lower grades and more disruptive classroom behaviour.

The study used the internationally recognised Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale to determine participants’ wellbeing. It also looked at students’ anxiety and depression levels.

In the UK, 96% of 12-to-15-year-olds have their own phone, according to the latest research by the online safety regulator, Ofcom, external.

Last year, the Department for Education in England said most schools were imposing restrictions on smartphone use, as it released non-binding guidance encouraging head teachers to do so.

Scotland and Northern Ireland followed suit, though Wales’s inclusion of “digital skills” on the curriculum means Welsh schools tend to take a more open approach.