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In Florida, in elementary and middle schools, from bell to bell, recently sailed through the state Legislature.

Gov. Ron聽聽on May 30, 2025. The same bill calls for high schools in six Florida districts to adopt the ban during the upcoming school year and produce a report on its effectiveness by Dec. 1, 2026.

But in the debate over whether phones in K-12 schools 鈥� and 鈥� .

We are experts in and who in Florida in November and December 2024 to learn how they鈥檙e using digital media and the role tech plays in their lives at home and at school. Their responses were insightful 鈥� and occasionally surprising.

Adults generally cite four reasons to ban phone use during school: to improve kids鈥� mental health, to strengthen academic outcomes, to reduce and to help limit kids鈥� overall screen time.

But as our survey shows, it may be a bit much to expect a cellphone ban to accomplish all of that.

What do kids want?

Some of the questions in our survey shine light on kids鈥� feelings toward banning cellphones 鈥� even though we didn鈥檛 ask that question directly.

We asked them if they feel relief when they鈥檙e in a situation where they can鈥檛 use their smartphone, and 31% said yes.

Additionally, 34% of kids agreed with the statement that social media causes more harm than good.

And kids were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to agree with those statements if they attended schools where phones are banned or confiscated for most of the school day, with use only permitted at certain times. That group covered 70% of the students we surveyed because many individual schools or in Florida have already limited students鈥� cellphone use.

How students use cellphones matters

Some 鈥減ower users鈥� of cellphone apps could likely use a break from them.

Twenty percent of children we surveyed said 鈥� that is, notifications from apps that pop up on the phone鈥檚 screen 鈥� are never turned off. These notifications are likely coming from the most popular apps kids reported using, like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

This 20% of children was roughly three times more likely to report experiencing anxiety than kids who rarely or never have their notifications on.

They were also nearly five times more likely to report earning mostly D鈥檚 and F鈥檚 in school than kids whose notifications are always or sometimes off.

Our survey results also suggest phone bans would likely have positive effects on grades and mental health among some of the heaviest screen users. For example, 22% of kids reported using their favorite app for six or more hours per day. These students were three times more likely to report earning mostly D鈥檚 and F鈥檚 in school than kids who spend an hour or less on their favorite app each day.

They also were six times more likely than hour-or-less users to report severe depression symptoms. These insights remained even after ruling out numerous other possible explanations for the difference 鈥� like age, household income, gender, parent鈥檚 education, race and ethnicity.

Banning students鈥� access to phones at school means these kids would not receive notifications for at least that seven-hour period and have fewer hours in the day to use apps.

Phones and mental health

However, other data we collected suggests that bans aren鈥檛 a universal benefit for all children.

Seventeen percent of kids who attend schools that ban or confiscate phones report severe depression symptoms, compared with just 4% among kids who keep their phones with them during the school day.

This finding held even after we ruled out other potential explanations for what we were seeing, such as the type of school students attend and other demographic factors.

We are not suggesting that our survey shows phone bans cause mental health problems.

It is possible, for instance, that the schools where kids already were struggling with their mental health simply happened to be the ones that have banned phones. Also, our survey didn鈥檛 ask kids how long phones have been banned at their schools. If the bans just launched, there may be positive effects on mental health or grades yet to come.

In order to get a better sense of the bans鈥� effects on mental health, we would need to examine mental health indicators before and after phone bans.

To get a long-term view on this question, we are planning to do a nationwide survey of digital media use and mental health, starting with 11- to 13-year-olds and tracking them into adulthood.

Even with the limitations of our data from this survey, however, we can conclude that banning phones in schools is unlikely to be an immediate solution to mental health problems of kids ages 11-13.

Grades up, cyberbullying down

Students at schools where phones are barred or confiscated didn鈥檛 report earning higher grades than children at schools where kids keep their phones.

This finding held for students at both private and public schools, and even after ruling out other possible explanations like differences in gender and household income, since .

There are limits to our findings here: Grades are not a perfect measure of learning, and they鈥檙e not standardized across schools. It鈥檚 possible that kids at phone-free schools are in fact learning more than those at schools where kids carry their phones around during school hours 鈥� even if they earn the same grades.

We asked kids how often in the past three months they鈥檇 experienced mistreatment online 鈥� like being called hurtful names or having lies or rumors spread about them. Kids at schools where phone use is limited during school hours actually reported enduring more cyberbullying than children at schools with less restrictive policies. This result persisted even after we considered smartphone ownership and numerous demographics as possible explanations.

We are not necessarily saying that cellphone bans cause an increase in cyberbullying. What could be at play here is that at schools where cyberbullying has been particularly bad, phones have been banned or are confiscated, and online bullying still occurs.

But based on our survey results, it does not appear that school phone bans prevent cyberbullying.

Overall, our findings suggest that banning phones in schools may not be an easy fix for students鈥� mental health problems, poor academic performance or cyberbullying.

That said, kids might benefit from phone-free schools in ways that we have not explored, like increased attention spans or reduced eyestrain.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

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