School phone bans can actually harm some students’ mental health

Many people are concerned about the negative consequences of too much screen time, especially if phone use in school distracts students and affects their learning. But a study suggests banning them from schools makes some students lonelier, at least initially.

“If schools decide to implement a total smartphone ban, there are some things they need to watch out for,” says Sanyogita Khare of Radboud University in the Netherlands. “Socially vulnerable young people may struggle a little more. Students may feel a little more separated from their friends.”

Cell phones and similar devices have been blamed for a host of ills, from bad grades to declining teen mental health. Despite there being little solid evidence to support these findings, the Netherlands banned phones and other smart devices from classrooms from January 1, 2024. Some of these schools also prohibit students from using such devices at any time during the school day, often requiring them to leave them in lockers.

To better understand the effects of this, Khare and her colleagues surveyed students from two high schools in the Netherlands, both of which have banned smartphones throughout the school day. The survey was first done in December 2023, before the nationwide ban, and again in March or April 2024.

Based on this, the researchers measured two forms of loneliness: social and emotional. “Social loneliness is more about the wider network; whether you feel part of a group,” says Khare. “Emotional loneliness interferes more with the sense of closeness and intimacy of a close friendship.”

When comparing how these changed from before to after the ban, the researchers found mixed results. “We didn’t find an overall change in social loneliness, but we did find a small increase in emotional loneliness,” says Khare. This could happen if some of the students’ closest friends were not at school, so the ban prevented them from contacting those people during the day.

The team also found that while children’s overall social loneliness did not increase, those who struggled more with social situations tended to become more socially lonely. Khare emphasizes that these results may not be permanent if students adapted to the ban over time.

One problem with the study is that the researchers did not compare these schools with others in the Netherlands that are more relaxed, for example by allowing phone use during recess, says Jonathan Cantor of RAND, a non-profit research organization in California. “We need data on similar students from similar schools without bans to make meaningful comparisons. Without it, we can’t determine whether the results reflect broader trends.”

Both Khare and Cantor say basic data on the effects of banning phones in schools is lacking. Cantor and his colleagues recently tried to improve on this by looking at phone bans in US schools where they are not mandatory.

They found that policies vary enormously, with some schools banning them entirely and others allowing students to use phones in class at the teacher’s discretion. In the UK, government guidance discourages phone use in schools, but leaves it to their leaders to decide whether to ban the use of such devices.

“The biggest problem right now is that in order for us to accurately evaluate the effect of these policies at the school level, we need to have detailed data about the type of policy and when they went into effect,” Cantor says. “That’s what everyone is running to try to analyze right now.”