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The topic of smartphones in schools has become an important one in the last couple of years. School districts are
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trying to set proper policy that has a positive impact on students and their learning. The problem is that many in
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education feel that cell phones hinder that process. Pleasure to be joined right now by Angela Duckworth who's a
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professor of operations, information, and decisions here at the Wharton School. She is part of new research
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coming out about this topic specifically and what we're seeing in our schools at
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the moment. Angela, great to talk to you again. How are you? >> Thank you for having me. I'm good.
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>> It's interesting you and I were talking about this before we started this
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interview. This has obviously become a very important topic in and around the school right now. I think not only is
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school cell phone policy an urgent topic, it may be one of the last bipartisan topics there is in the
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universe. So whether you are red or blue, whether you are pro- teacher union or pro-charter school, like we have not
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found the educator who doesn't care about this issue and who doesn't feel
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like we should be doing more than we're doing right now, >> right? And and so obviously the the the
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component of learning is a big one here, but as you just alluded to, there's an
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element of this is is how the teachers are dealing with this and being able to try and work through their normal
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process during a day. >> You know, the policy the default policy for um you know, several years just I'm
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talking about nationwide, right? Just sort of like what are K12 schools doing about phones? Um, in America, you know,
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for a long time, the default is that every teacher reigns supreme over their classroom and that includes phones. So,
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if you are a teacher who says, "I don't care." And you can have your phones on
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your person, great, that's your classroom. But then when the students go to the next period, they might have a
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teacher who does care and then you have to put your phones in a cubby and and so
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forth. And that is actually how much of American education works, right? uh but in the case of phones I think what we
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have is what some scientists call collective action trap um that is where individual decision-m individual
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willpower is no match for the problem and I think what teachers have been saying in our survey data which I know
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we're here to talk about is that they need help just legislate cell phone policy as a teacher on their own
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separate from what the school is doing as a Okay. So, let's dig into the research
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because this is part of a larger research project that you're on is ongoing right now. This first part was a
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survey about some of these policies. >> So, there is a national survey that is
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up and running right now. We we we're like a convenience store, you know, 247.
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We never close. And it lives at www.phonesinfocus.org. and any school teacher in the United
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States, we're looking for public school teachers, K12, can can log on and in a
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confidential way share in a matter of minutes what the policy is at their school and from their perspective, you
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know, how's it going. We're really interested in looking for changes in policy that predict changes in outcome.
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So on the same survey, you're also asked you whether your policy at your school
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has changed in recent years, and if so, how. And what we're seeing in the 20,000
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plus responses that we've already received from public school educators across all 50 states is an important
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pattern, which is that the stricter the policy, the happier the teacher. And again, in this cross-sectional snapshot,
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the stricter the policy, the less distraction there is for students uh in in terms of their academic work.
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>> One of the things you brought up to me beforehand, and it's an interesting
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component of it when you're thinking about these rules, the proximity of where a student can hold their phone is
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also a factor in this as well. You know, one way to appreciate the importance of
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physical distance on psychological distance and there really is a a kind of a law in psychology that you know more
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physical distance creates more psychological distance from from temptation. One way we can appreciate
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this is to consider our own relationship with our phone. I don't know any adults
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who have a completely unconlicted, you know, um I' I've got this um relationship with their own phones. This
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is not a teenager problem. I think it's not just a kid problem. And if I have my
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phone, you know, one ft away, one foot away, like that's a different level of
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temptation than if I, for example, have my phone in another room or if you really want to get me off my phone. If
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you put my phone upstairs and I have to walk up eight stairs to get it, of course, it's trivial, right? Like, well,
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how hard could that be? >> But but yeah, that makes a huge difference. And that may be why we're
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finding that schools, for example, who require their students to keep their phones in their hallway lockers, which
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are not, you know, 1 ft away from them when they're in class. They're typically
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more than 30 feet away from them. And in fact, they can be on a different floor.
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You know, those schools perform extremely well in the outcome data that we are collecting. And one of the other
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components of the policy angle on this is uh not just how from potential classroom to classroom that different
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teachers have different thoughts about cell phone policy but within the school structure itself K through 12 that you
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may come up with one policy in grade school, one policy in middle school and another one in high school.
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>> We find a pattern again across the United States that actually I I can't
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speak for the whole team. It surprised me. So when you think about cell phones, you typically think about teenagers and
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you think about social media again, you think about teenagers. And when you worry, you worry about teenagers. But
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we're finding that the schools that serve teenagers, which are the high schools, right? That's grade 9 through
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12, 14 to 18 years old, those schools paradoxically have the the least strict rules. So perhaps arguably just when
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students need the most support in regulating their attention, their impulses to stay focused on academic
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work, which in prior research shows teenagers recognize that academic work is good for their long-term future. This
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is true across the board across socio economic status. A students, F students, everybody knows that school is good for
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them. And so it is in the teen years perhaps when students need the most support and when temptations are
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strongest that we give them the least support in terms of school cell phone policies. Only one in four schools in
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our sample at the high school level has a bellto bell policy meaning you can't
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use it from the first bell of school to the you know last bell of school. So all
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day all away that's only one in four high schools. But when you look at the younger grades it's flipped. So when you
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look K8, that's more like three out of four schools in our sample. >> But still the component of mental health
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is part of this discussion as well because this is going back to just screen time in general with our kids.
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>> Yeah. The the the fact that I want to, you know, begin with and is just to say
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it is a fact that there is a mental health crisis among youth. Sometimes I'm
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asked like is it just an artifact of the data? You know, is there something in report? I'm like no. kids today really
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are struggling. They're struggling with anxiety. They're struggling with
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loneliness. Uh and they're studying they're struggling with the the symptoms
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of depression relative to other generations of kids, you know, in in years past. So, so the connection
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between teen mental health and screens is a big topic that we're not going to
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have uh time to discuss entirely today, but I will tell you this now that we have thousands and thousands of
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educators and hopefully um hopefully and by the way, if you're listening to this
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and you know anybody who's a school teacher, please send them to our phones and focus.org survey. But now that we
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have some responses, we can find these schools and talk to them. And I will tell you what the principles and the
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teachers are telling us. They say that yeah, test scores, you know, are influenced by by uh cell phone policies.
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So are the number of books checked out of the library going up in schools that have uh lower or I should say more
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restrictive policies, but social emotional outcomes, how are kids feeling and how are they relating to each other?
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Um that's the primary outcome for many of the educators that I'm speaking with.
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They say when we started a policy that really restricted phone use during school hours and that includes where
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kids keep it, they made eye contact with each other more. They talked to each other more. You actually hear noise in
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the cafeteria. The noise the den of young people interact with each other. Before it was like you could you could
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hear a pin drop because the kids would just be silently, you know, scrolling through something with their thumb and
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shoveling food into their mouths. So, so I I really, you know, I don't want to
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sound like a lite because I think the role of technology is complicated and it's certainly got a lot of affordances
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that we don't want to ignore, but I worry about young people not interacting
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with each other, not having realistic, sensible ideas about, you know, what is expected of them and I worry about their
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attention. >> So, as you're collecting this data right now, what are the next steps in the
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process for this research? Well, you know, there are tens of thousands of uh middle schools and high schools in
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particular. As I mentioned before, a lot of the action is at the higher grade levels because that's where the policies
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are the least restrictive. And as a developmental psychologist, I will tell you that these are our most impulsive
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years of life. So, so we are thinking that maybe just maybe every middle and high school in America might participate
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in our survey. That would be at least one educator from every middle school and high school in the United States
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going at some point this month, this week, maybe today to phones andfocus.org. And if we really do that, if we
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accomplish that goal, then we will have a census of what is going on in this country. We're going to match that to
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standardized test scores, to attendance data, also to measures of climate and student engagement and well-being. And
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then we are going to deliver the results to the educators who answered the survey
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and you know to legislators who are making important decisions about the specifics of cell phone policy and how
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to optimize youth well-being, youth engagement and yes, youth achievement as well.
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>> Angela, great to talk to you again. Thanks very much. >> Always good to see you.
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>> Thank you. Angela Duckworth, professor of operations information and decisions
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here at the Warren School and again that website phonesinfocus.org. O RG