Phone-Free School Statistics 2026: The Data Behind Phone Bans

Whether you are building a case for a school board, writing a grant, or answering a parent, you need numbers you can check. Every statistic on this page links to its source, and we dropped figures we couldn’t trace. Where findings disagree, as they do on test scores, we show both sides.

Laws and School Policies

• • 44 states and D.C. require public schools to restrict student phones or adopt a phone policy, as of October 27, 2026 (state-by-state list)
• • 77% of public schools prohibit phones during any class: 86% of elementary schools and 55% of high schools (December 2024 data) (NCES)
• • 98% of teens attend a school that limits phones in some way, and just over half attend schools with bell-to-bell bans (USC survey via The 74)
• • 79 education systems (40%) worldwide had banned smartphones in schools by the end of 2024, up from 60 (30%) a year earlier (UNESCO)
• • California’s AB 3216 requires every school district, county office of education and charter school to adopt a policy limiting or prohibiting smartphone use by July 1, 2026 (California Legislative Information). Our California guide covers what it does and doesn’t require.
• • Florida’s HB 379 (2023) restricts student use of wireless devices during instructional time; it took effect July 1, 2023 (Florida Senate). See our Florida guide.
• • About 60% of New Hampshire districts let students keep phones out of sight in the first year of the state’s bell-to-bell rule, and about 25% require lockers, bags or containers (NH Department of Education survey via InDepthNH)

State-by-state details are in our phone-free school laws directory.

Teachers and School Leaders

• • 72% of high school teachers say students being distracted by phones is a major problem in their classroom, compared with 33% of middle school and 6% of elementary teachers (fall 2023 survey) (Pew Research Center)
• • 73% of public school leaders say phones have hurt students’ attention spans, 72% say they have hurt mental health, and 53% say they have hurt academic performance (NCES)
• • 75% of New York educators said their ability to teach effectively improved after the state’s first phone-free year, and 76% saw more student engagement (585 responses) (New York Governor’s Office, June 2026)
• • Nearly 80% of teachers and 88% of administrators in New Hampshire said the new policies were effective at reducing distractions (InDepthNH)
• • 30% of New Hampshire teachers and 42% of administrators reported fewer discipline problems after the first year of the state’s bell-to-bell rule (InDepthNH)
• • 77% of New Hampshire teachers said they never or rarely see phones used in class for non-instructional purposes after the rule took effect (InDepthNH)

The New York and New Hampshire figures are educators’ own reports from state-run surveys, not measured outcomes; New Hampshire notes its results are not representative of all educators.

Students and Actual Phone Use

• • More than half of teens at schools that restrict phones during class say they don’t follow the rules, and about two-thirds at schools with complete bans still use their phones during the day (USC survey via The 74)
• • 1.5 hours a day: teens’ average phone use at school, in the same USC survey (The 74)
• • Rising, but least where rules are strictest: teens’ reported phone use at school rose over the 2025–26 year; in core classes it rose about 10 percentage points at bell-to-bell schools versus about 18 points elsewhere (Brookings)

Academic Impact

• • 6.41% of a standard deviation: the test-score gain after phone bans in schools in four English cities, rising to 14.23% for the lowest-achieving students; bans that weren’t widely followed showed no significant gain (LSE, Beland and Murphy, 2015)
• • 1.1 percentile points: the test-score gain in the second year of Florida’s instructional-time ban in one large district, after a smaller gain in the first year (Figlio and Özek)
• • Close to zero: average test-score effects of lockable-pouch bans across U.S. schools, with modest gains in high school math and small declines in middle school (NBER, 2026)
• • 16,683 college students: the size of a 2026 randomized trial in India in which collecting phones at the start of each lecture raised grades, most for lower-performing and first-year students, with no change in attendance (Science, 2026)
• • No average effect, gains for girls: Norwegian middle school bans had no average effect on education or mental health, but improved girls’ GPAs and reduced their use of psychological health care (Journal of Human Resources, 2026)
• • 17% lower: comprehension scores for university students seated in view of a classmate multitasking on a laptop during a lecture (Sana, Weston and Cepeda, 2013)
• • Up to 20 minutes: how long it can take students to refocus after a distraction, according to a study UNESCO cites (UNESCO)

For whether phone bans work overall, see do phone bans in schools work; for the full picture on grades, see does banning phones improve grades.

Bullying and Well-Being

• • 16% of U.S. high school students were electronically bullied in the past year, including 21% of girls and 25% of LGBTQ+ students (2023) (CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey)
• • 58% of U.S. students ages 13–17 have been cyberbullied at some point, and 33% in the past 30 days (2025) (Cyberbullying Research Center)
• • 60% of New York educators reported a decline in bullying and cyberbullying after the state’s first phone-free year (New York Governor’s Office)
• • About 80.5% fewer: social media incidents reported in South Australian public schools in January–June 2025 than in the same months of 2023, before the state’s ban; most took place off site or outside school hours (South Australia Department for Education)
• • No clear change: in students’ perceived online bullying in U.S. schools that adopted pouches; well-being dipped in the first year and then recovered (NBER, 2026)

More: do school phone bans reduce cyberbullying and The Anxious Generation and phone-free schools.

Parents and Public Opinion

• • 77% of U.S. adults support banning phones during class for middle and high school students in 2026, up from 74% in 2025 and 68% in 2024 (Pew Research Center)
• • 48% of U.S. adults support an all-day ban in 2026, up from 36% in 2024; for the first time more support than oppose it (Pew Research Center)
• • 65% of parents of K-12 students supported a class-time ban in 2024 (Pew Research Center)
• • 60% of ban opponents said a major reason is that parents should be able to reach their child when needed (2024) (Pew Research Center)

Phone Pouches

• • At least 2.5 million U.S. students use Yondr pouches (CBS News, 2025)
• • $30 per pouch at list, or $27 on the Texas ESC Region 13 co-op, with a 500-student Year-1 total of $15,525 before shipping (Yondr price sheet)
• • $5.2 million: what Los Angeles Unified spent on pouches in the 2023–24 school year (NBC News)

District-by-district spending is in our Yondr pouch cost breakdown.

LockedIn’s Own Data: The State Law Tracker

The state counts on this page come from LockedIn’s own tracker, which checks every state and D.C. against the legislature, governor or state board that issued its rule and records the date of each check. It is free to download from the state law directory as CSV or JSON, with the law or bill, scope, citation, primary source and last-verified date for each state.

Using This Data

You’re welcome to cite these figures in board presentations, parent letters and grant proposals; please cite the original source linked beside each one. For help building the case, see our school board presentation guide.

Sources

1. Education Week, Which States Ban or Restrict Cellphones in Schools? (updated July 28, 2026)
2. National Center for Education Statistics, More Than Half of Public School Leaders Say Cell Phones Hurt Academic Performance (School Pulse Panel, December 2024 data) (Feb. 19, 2025)
3. The 74, Study: 98% of Teens Attend Schools Limiting Cellphones, but Most Still Use Them (USC Understanding America Study) (Jan. 28, 2026)
4. Brookings Institution, A year later: What teens tell us about school cellphone bans (Silver, Rapaport and Polikoff) (Sept. 10, 2026)
5. UNESCO, Smartphones in school? Only when they clearly support learning (July 26, 2023, updated Jan. 24, 2025)
6. California Legislative Information, AB 3216 (2024): Pupils: use of smartphones
7. Florida Senate, CS/HB 379 (2023): Technology in K-12 Public Schools (approved May 9, 2023)
8. InDepthNH, School cellphone survey indicates ban is effective (New Hampshire Department of Education survey) (July 29, 2026)
9. Pew Research Center, 72% of U.S. high school teachers say cellphone distraction is a major problem in the classroom (June 12, 2024)
10. Pew Research Center, Most Americans back cellphone bans during class, but fewer support all-day restrictions (Oct. 14, 2024)
11. Pew Research Center, More Americans now support than oppose all-day school cellphone bans (July 29, 2026)
12. Office of the Governor of New York, Governor Hochul Announces Successful Results of New York’s Nation-Leading Phone-Free Schools Policy (June 1, 2026)
13. London School of Economics, Centre for Economic Performance, Ill Communication: Technology, Distraction & Student Performance (Beland and Murphy, Discussion Paper 1350, PDF) (May 2015)
14. EdWorkingPapers, The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida, research brief (PDF) (2025)
15. National Bureau of Economic Research, The Effects of School Phone Bans: National Evidence from Lockable Pouches (Working Paper 35132, Allcott, Baron, Dee, Duckworth, Gentzkow and Jacob) (April 2026, revised Sept. 2026)
16. Science, Phones impede learning: Evidence from a massive phone-free classroom experiment (Sungu, Choudhury and Bjerre-Nielsen) (Oct. 8, 2026)
17. Journal of Human Resources, Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health (Abrahamsson) (published online March 11, 2026)
18. Computers & Education, Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers (Sana, Weston and Cepeda) (2013)
19. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2013–2023 (PDF) (2024)
20. Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 Cyberbullying Data (2025)
21. South Australia Department for Education, Wellbeing data shows positive effects of mobile phone ban (July 24, 2025)
22. CBS News, Schools across U.S. turn to a locked magnetic pouch as a cellphone ban solution. Here’s what to know (Sept. 6, 2025)
23. ESC Region 13, Yondr Product Pricing - Region 13 ESC (PDF) (Oct. 6, 2025)
24. NBC News, Schools spend millions on pouches to keep phones out of students’ hands (Sept. 12, 2025)

Researched and written by the LockedIn team (co-founders Brian Ohebshalom and Noah Fakheri). Sources checked October 12, 2026; the Science trial added October 23, 2026. We make LockedIn, a phone-lock app for schools; apart from the state counts, which come from our own law tracker, none of the figures above come from LockedIn. Spot an error? Email hello@lockedinapp.co.