Smartphone Free Childhoods?

Supporting young people, teachers and parents navigate smartphone bans in schools.

The global uptake of smartphone bans is based on the assumption that smartphones are addictive, distracting, unhealthy, and harmful to educational outcomes. The research on mobile phone bans, however, is mixed, showing that while some regulation is helpful, a complete ban may be counterproductive and reduce educational outcomes. Despite mass policy push on the issue, and wide uptake of smartphone banning in schools in England, there has been little research seeking to understand the effects of these bans and how to support young people, schools and parents. To address this problem, this project investigated how smartphone restrictions are being implemented in schools and at home.

The team gathered the perspectives of students and parents in school sites with varying smartphone policies to regulate smartphone use. Working with the charity Life Lessons, the project team conducted mixed methodology using questionnaires, individual interviews, focus groups and arts-based research with young people, teachers and parents. The sample size was 708 young people, 28 educational professionals, and 41 parents. The schools' visits were from 5 schools (of different types and policies), with 4 teacher interviews and 74 young people through 13 focus groups. The focus groups used an arts-based method to generate visual data, including a digital timeline of students' daily phone use, applied app usage ranking exercises and social media templates on social media platform use and AI/chatbot use. 

In addition, a research seminar was organised, "Day care or control? Regulating technology, behaviour and gender at school" in May 2025. This event featured 14 speakers, with 90 online attendees and 60 in-person. 

The main findings showed that a strict ban was effective for reducing incidents from the school's perspective (e.g. a 96% drop in reports at the Academy). However, bans reduce children's autonomy, trust and agency. It benefits teachers or school management rather than students' learning outcomes. Students had mixed feelings, such as they valued privacy but did not like full restrictions and had a desire for balanced policies for use during break times but not during lessons. The majority of unregulated phone use and online content exposure occurred at home, and students wanted parental guidance. 

The project team summarised several recommendations:

1. Schools and parents must adopt a joint approach instead of shifting responsibility.
2. Guide parents on digital literacy, healthy screen habits, and the responsible use of AI.
3. Develop parent-focused resources through schools (e.g., a parent portal) rather than relying on direct parent engagement
4. Need for mindful and ethical digital literacy in the curriculum (e.g., algorithms, misinformation, consent).

Image credit: iStock