Away For The Day | Latest News - Phones impede learning: Evidence from a massive phone-free classroom experiment

ALP SUNGU, PRADEEP KUMAR CHOUDHURY, AND ANDREAS BJERRE-NIELSEN, Science

Amid growing concerns about the impact of mobile phones on learning as well as mental health and peer relationships—especially among students, ranging from primary schools to colleges (1–3)—many of the world’s education systems have adopted nationwide bans on smartphone use in primary and secondary schools as a means to reduce distraction, digital addiction, and cyberbullying (4). Despite the surge in policy measures, there is a marked scarcity of large-scale experimental evidence evaluating the broader impacts of school phone restrictions on student learning, well-being, digital behavior, and overall educational experience. We report on a randomized controlled trial involving 16,683 students across 10 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Odisha, an eastern Indian state of more than 40 million people, where smartphone ownership among youth aged 15 to 29 exceeds 70% (5). Our findings suggest that phone bans can improve students’ academic achievement, with particularly pronounced benefits for low-performing students.

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Phones impede learning: Evidence from a massive phone-free classroom experiment

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