Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Cross-sectional study

Do stricter phone bans at school help teens feel better?

Paper: Disconnect To Reconnect: How Variations between Types of Smartphone Bans Influence Students’ Well-being and Social Connectedness in Dutch Secondary Education
Vanluydt et al. · Journal of Youth and Adolescence 2026 · doi.org/10.1007/s10964-025-02313-6

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Do stricter phone bans at school help teens feel better? Researchers in the Netherlands surveyed 1,398 teenagers. Some schools banned phones in classrooms only, others on all school grounds. Full bans were not linked to better well-being or less bullying. Yet at full-ban schools, boys and girls felt less connected to teachers, and girls felt they belonged less. It is one snapshot survey, so it shows a link, not proof of cause.

AI-assisted summary with an AI voice, not reviewed by the authors. Made from the paper under its CC BY licence. Read the paper before relying on a finding. Keywords: Do phone bans in schools work?, phone bans, school technology policy, student well-being, social connectedness, bullying.