# Do School Phone Bans Raise Grades? What the Research Data Show > School phone bans have a small but real effect on grades and attention, while their effect on wellbeing is unclear. Beland and Murphy (2016, Labour Economics) analyzed 91 English secondary schools and found that exam scores at age 16 rose by 6.4% of a standard deviation after a ban, and by 14.2% among the lowest-achieving students. In the OECD's PISA 2022, students distracted by classmates' digital devices scored 15 points lower in mathematics. However, Goodyear and colleagues (2025, Lancet Regional Health Europe) surveyed 30 UK schools and found no difference in mental health, sleep, or grades between strict and lenient schools; what mattered was total daily use. The sensible reading is that bans work as a way to reduce competition for attention in class, but do not change usage habits across the whole day. - URL: https://brainrank.jp/en/blog/school-phone-ban - Published: 2026-09-13 - Publisher: BrainRank Editorial Team (https://brainrank.jp) - Tags: Cognitive abilities, Psychology France banned phone use in class by law in 2018, and the Netherlands did so nationwide in secondary schools from 2024. England issued guidance in 2024 asking every school to ban them, and the debate over phones in schools continues in Japan. The policy is spreading fast. Whether a ban actually improves grades and concentration is a separate question. This article splits the research into three parts: grades, attention, and mental health. ## Grades: a comparison of 91 English schools The most cited study is [Beland and Murphy (2016, Labour Economics)](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004). Using the fact that 91 secondary schools in four English cities introduced phone bans at different times, the authors compared scores on the national exams taken at age 16 (GCSEs) before and after each ban. Scores rose by 6.4% of a standard deviation after a ban. That is a small effect size, but the authors note it is equivalent to about five extra school days of learning per year. The distribution of the effect matters more. Splitting students by prior achievement, the lowest group gained 14.2% of a standard deviation, while the highest group gained almost nothing. Students whose attention breaks most easily benefit most from removing the distraction. Bans did not just nudge the average up; they narrowed the gap. Analyzing Norwegian middle schools, [Abrahamsson (2024)](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4735240) also reported higher GPAs for girls and fewer reports of bullying in schools that introduced bans. This is a preprint, though, and the effects are more modest than in the English study. ## Attention: it drains even when idle Attention research explains why bans work. [Ward and colleagues (2017, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research)](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/691462) asked about 800 university students to keep their own phone either face down on the desk, in a bag or pocket, or in another room, then gave them working-memory and fluid-intelligence tasks. All phones were switched off. Scores were highest for the other-room group and lowest for the desk group, even though participants reported not feeling distracted. The authors called this "brain drain": holding back from using the phone itself consumes cognitive resources. Even unused, a phone in view has a cost. Classroom-level data show the same pattern. In the OECD's [PISA 2022 results (Volume II)](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volume-ii_a97db61c-en.html), students who said they were distracted by other students' digital devices in mathematics lessons scored 15 points lower in mathematics than those who were not. The attention cost falls not only on the user but on classmates, which is the case for making the ban a classroom rule rather than a matter of self-control. The cost of recovering focus after an interruption is the same switching cost covered in [the multitasking article](https://brainrank.jp/en/blog/multitasking). A single glance at a notification takes time to undo. ## Mental health: a ban alone changes little Whether bans also improve wellbeing and sleep is less clear. [Goodyear and colleagues (2025, Lancet Regional Health Europe)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40213498/) compared 1,227 students at 30 UK secondary schools, contrasting restrictive schools (no phone use during the school day) with permissive ones. They found no difference by policy in mental wellbeing, anxiety or depression, sleep, physical activity, or grades. What did predict worse outcomes was total daily phone and social media time. Students at restrictive schools used their phones outside school about as much as those at permissive schools. This does not contradict the Beland and Murphy result. A school ban works as a way to reduce competition for attention during lessons, but it is not a way to cut total daily use. Whole-day habits are covered in [the dopamine detox article](https://brainrank.jp/en/blog/dopamine-detox) and [the attention span article](https://brainrank.jp/en/blog/attention-span-myth). ## What the research does and does not say Putting it together: - Supported: bans during lessons raise grades slightly, with larger effects for low achievers. A phone in view drains cognitive resources even when unused. Classmates' phone use lowers scores too - Not supported: that a ban by itself improves mental health or sleep, or reduces total use - Unknown: how long effects last, whether they apply to primary school, and whether the method (collection, lockers, switched off) matters Most of the studies cover secondary education, and most are observational. Based on this evidence, [UNESCO's 2023 report](https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/technology) recommends banning phones where their use does not support learning, while noting that bans alone are not enough. ## Applying it to your own focus This is not only about schools. Whether your phone sits on the desk during an exam or a work session is exactly Ward's experiment. When you need to concentrate, the most effective move is not switching it off but leaving it in another room. Phones affect [processing speed](https://brainrank.jp/en/blog/processing-speed-training), which depends on sustained attention, and [working memory](https://brainrank.jp/en/blog/working-memory-training), which holds intermediate information. To see your own profile by domain, [BrainRank's free IQ test](https://brainrank.jp/en/start) scores 20 questions (about 10 minutes) across spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, logical reasoning, and classification using item response theory (IRT) and returns per-domain tendencies. Try taking it with your phone in another room to keep conditions equal. Results are estimates for entertainment and self-understanding, not a medical or diagnostic assessment. ## Frequently asked questions ### Do grades go up when schools ban phones? In the English study, exam scores rose by about 6% of a standard deviation after a ban, and by about 14% for the lowest-achieving students, with almost no effect at the top. The interpretation is that students whose attention is most easily broken benefit most from removing the thing that breaks it. ### Does a phone on the desk hurt concentration even if I don't use it? Yes. In an experiment by Ward and colleagues (2017), people whose own switched-off phone sat on the desk did worse on a working-memory task than those who left it in another room. Simply keeping yourself from using it appears to consume part of your attention. ### Do bans improve students' mental health? The evidence is split. A Norwegian study found fewer psychological consultations among girls after bans, but a 2025 survey of 30 UK schools found no link between policy strictness and mental health; what mattered was total daily use. The current view is that a school ban alone does not change habits across the whole day. ## Sources - [Beland and Murphy (2016, Labour Economics)](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004) - [Abrahamsson (2024)](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4735240) - [Ward and colleagues (2017, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research)](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/691462) - [PISA 2022 results (Volume II)](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volume-ii_a97db61c-en.html) - [Goodyear and colleagues (2025, Lancet Regional Health Europe)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40213498/) - [UNESCO's 2023 report](https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/technology) --- Statistics and percentages are calculated from a normal distribution model with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The tests on this site provide estimates for entertainment and self-understanding; they are not medical or clinical assessments, nor official intelligence tests. When citing, credit "BrainRank (brainrank.jp)" and link the article URL.