School phone policies not silver bullet for student outcomes
Mar 18, 2026
Students who attend schools with smartphone bans report missing sleep to make up for "lost time" on their phones but benefit from more face-to-face socializing in the school day, as a new UK study reveals a mixed picture of how phones affect secondary school students' experiences. In the latest stud
y from the SMART Schools project published in Social Sciences and Medicine, a team of academics from the University of Birmingham conducted in-depth research with seven schools to identify ways in which smartphone policies influence well-being among students. ...read more read less