School smartphone bans reflect growing concern over youth mental health and academic performance

The number of states prohibiting smartphones in schools increases.

New York is now the largest state of the United States to ban smartphones in public schools. From the fall of 2025, students will not be allowed to use their phone during the school day, including during lunch, recess or between courses. This bell-Biel policy will have an impact on nearly 2.5 million students from kindergarten to 12th year.

By prohibiting smartphones in schools, New York joins states across the country. Prohibitions occur in traditionally liberal and conservative states.

Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, Northern Dakota, Oklahoma and Virginia-Western all adopted legislation in 2025 which forces schools to have policies that limit access to smartphones. Policies will come into force during the 2025-2026 school year. This brings the total to 17 states, as well as Washington, DC, which have school legislation without telephone or decrees.

I am a teacher who studies communication and culture, and while writing a book on parental culture, I noticed the story on smartphones and social media in the last decade.

A rotating tide

According to the Pew Research Center, 67% of American adults support the ban on smartphones during the lessons, although only 36% support them to prohibit them for the whole day school day. In particular, the majority of republican, democratic and independent voters all support prohibitions during class hours.

More broadly, the movements led by parents to limit the use of smartphones, social media and internet by children have emerged across the country. For example, the Movement of Schools without telephone in Pennsylvania was launched in 2023, and mothers against the dependence on the media began in New York in March 2024. These organizations, which allow parents to defend their local communities, follow the traces of organizations such as waiting until the 8th in 2017.

The concerns of these organizations led by the parents have reflected in the best -selling book “The Anxious Generation”, which portrays a dark image of modern childhood, as dominated by depression and anxiety caused by dependence on smartphones.

Schools without a phone are one of the four actions that the author of the book, Jonathan Haidt, recommended to change course. The other three are not smartphones for children before high school, waiting for 16 years for access to social media and allowing more infantile independence in the real world.

Haidt’s research team collaborated with Harris voting to probe Gen Z. They found that almost half of these 18 to 27 years want social media to have never been invented, and 21% want smartphones to have never been invented. About 40% of generation Z respondents supported schools without a phone.

The Pew Research Center has revealed that almost 40% of children aged 8 to 12 use social media and that almost 95% of children aged 13 to 17 use it, with almost half of adolescents reporting that they are almost constantly using social media.

Schools without a telephone are also part of the largest trend in states and nations that are resistant to major technologies, large technological companies that play an important role in world trade.

In May 2025, two American senators presented Stop The Scroll Act, which would require mental health warnings on social networks.

New laws that prohibit smartphones or social media for young people are introduced into several Western nations. Australia has banned all social networks for those under the age of 16.

After a deadly stab in a college in eastern France on June 10, French president Emmanuel Macron announced the same day that he wanted the European Union to fix the minimum age for social media at 15. He argued that social media was a factor of violence among adolescents. If the EU does not act in a few months, Macron is committed to promulgating a ban in France as soon as possible.

The impact on learning

Although this trend in restricting the use of school phones is new, more states can adopt smartphones prohibitions in the future. Bell -to -bell prohibitions are considered particularly powerful to improve academic performance.

Some research has suggested that when children have access to a smartphone, even if they don’t use it, they find it more difficult to concentrate in class. Initial research has revealed that school return improves after the entry into force of prohibitions.

The test results dropped in the United States during the locking of the pandemic and did not return to prepondemic levels. Some states, such as Maine and Oregon, are almost a year behind the level of reading. No state has recovered in mathematics and reading.

The state prohibits the state of local school districts linked to the creation of their own technological prohibitions, which can lead to animated debates. Although the majority of adults approve smartphones prohibited in class, 24% oppose them for reasons such as the desire to contact their children throughout the day and want parents to set the limits.

However, 72% of secondary teachers say that phones are a major distraction. Anecdotal, schools report that students love prohibitions after getting used to change.

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