Cell Phone Policies in Schools: A Science and Policy Update on the Effects of Students’ Non-Academic Screen Use

BOULDER, CO (October 20, 2026) — Students spend significant amounts of time during the school day engaging with social media and entertainment platforms on their personal smart devices, such as smartphones and smartwatches, as well as on their school-issued laptops and tablets. A new review of research concludes that this behavior is harmful and that lawmakers should double down on policies to address the problem.

The policy landscape with respect to such non-academic device use in schools has shifted dramatically in a short time. As recently as 2018, restrictions on phones and other personal devices in U.S. schools were largely left to individual teachers’ discretion. By late 2025, 35 states and the District of Columbia had enacted laws or policies addressing phone use in K-12 schools, 22 of them during 2025 alone.

A new policy brief, Cell Phone Policies in Schools: A Science and Policy Update on the Effects of Students’ Non-Academic Screen Use, reviews what is known about the effects of non-academic screen use in schools and the emerging evidence on policies that restrict it. Authors Mitch Prinstein and Corbin Evans examine research in developmental neuroscience, adolescent mental health, classroom behavior, and academic performance. They also review initial evaluations of smartphone-restriction policies in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Prinstein is the John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Co-Director of the Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as the Senior Science Advisor of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Evans is Deputy Chief of Operations & Strategy and Senior Advisor to the Deputy CEO at the American Psychological Association.

Prinstein and Evans consider the research on smartphones as well as the non-academic use of school-issued computers and tablets, and they draw several conclusions from that research. Importantly, non-academic screen use during class, on personal or school-issued devices, is associated with lower academic performance, not only for the students using the devices but also for nearby classmates. This “secondhand” effect has classroom-level implications. Adolescents’ heightened social sensitivity and still-developing impulse control likely make it especially difficult for them to disengage voluntarily.

Preliminary evidence also links heavy screen use to disrupted sleep and differences in adolescent brain structure and function, although these findings require replication and long-term follow-up.

Evidence on smartphone restrictions themselves is still preliminary. Most policies were enacted within the last two to three years, few studies use rigorous designs, and no published study has evaluated a personal smart-device restriction alongside systematic limits on non-academic content on school-issued devices.

Even so, the available evidence suggests small but meaningful improvements in academic performance following restrictions, often appearing one to two years after implementation. These gains have been concentrated in schools that previously had the least restrictive policies. Disciplinary incidents tend to spike in the short term as enforcement begins, subsiding thereafter.

Research does not yet speak to the comparative effectiveness of different policy designs, such as bell-to-bell versus instructional-time-only restrictions, different storage methods, or phone-only versus all-device bans. The effects of restrictions on students’ social and psychological functioning are also largely unstudied.

The brief concludes that non-academic phone use in school is associated with a range of academic, cognitive, and psychological impacts. The authors offer recommendations for state legislators, education agencies, and district and school leaders—who should act now, even while research continues. Where evidence of impact is substantial and the cost of inaction is borne by students, policymakers can reasonably act on the best available evidence while building the record needed to evaluate their choices.

Find Cell Phone Policies in Schools: A Science and Policy Update on the Effects of Students’ Non-Academic Screen Use, by Mitch Prinstein and Corbin Evans, at:
https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/cell-phones

This policy brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, sponsors research, produces policy briefs, and publishes expert third-party reviews of think tank reports. NEPC publications are written in accessible language and are intended for a broad audience that includes academic experts, policymakers, the media, and the general public. Our mission is to provide high-quality information in support of democratic deliberation about education policy. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence and support a multiracial society that is inclusive, kind, and just. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu