Should smartphones be prohibited in UK schools?

The public is calling for lawmakers to impose mandatory smartphone bans in schools, citing the unsettling effects of smartphones on developing brains despite the allure of technology

Is drastic action necessary?

Why is there a push to outlaw smartphones in schools?

Early this week, Apple's stock reached an all-time high, just above the company's December 2024 peak, which valued it at a little over £4 trillion. The recent iPhone's better-than-expected salesthe 17 series has outsold the 16 in China and the US during its first ten days of availabilitywere the cause of the spike. It appears that the allure of smartphones is still as strong as ever. Why wouldn't you love having a portable computer in your pocket that can be used as a phone, camera, satnav, mini-TV, and everything else in between? However, public concerns about the impact of smartphones on people's mental health, particularly that of children and adolescents, have never been more prominent, with calls for politicians to, for example, mandate school smartphone bans rather than leaving it up to individual headteachers.

Do concerns about smartphones have a valid basis?

There is undoubtedly a lengthy and shameful history of one generation being concerned about the negative consequences that new technologies will have on the following. For instance, Plato is renowned for having held that the only authentic method of teaching knowledge was through in-person conversations, and that recording facts on scrolls would weaken students' memory of them. More recently, the rise of artificial intelligence, video games, and calculators has alarmed educators. Critics, however, contend that the argument against smartphones is of a different kind, unquestionable, and epochal. James Marriott contends in his Substack newsletter that the introduction of the smartphone, which became popular in developed nations in the middle of the 2010s, will be regarded as a "watershed in human history."

So how?

The smartphone demands your whole life, according to Marriott, whereas earlier entertainment technologies like television and movies "were intended to capture their audiences' attention for a period."

A diet of meaningless notifications, dull short-form videos, and social media rage bait is what makes phones "hyper-addictive." Addiction is associated with a sharp and unsettling decline in the number of adults and adolescents who read books for pleasure; it is a feature, not a flaw. Adults typically stare at screens for seven hours every day; for Generation Z, that number is nine. Professors at universities are reporting a "collapse in literacy" that has alarming ramifications for the future for a variety of social and economic reasons, and the introduction of smartphones coincided with the beginning of a decline in global PISA scores, the most reliable international indicator of student ability. We are witnessing "a tragic impoverishing of the human experience, in addition to the loss of information and intelligence."

Do smartphones actually have that much flaw?

According to Rhys Blakely of The Times, social media scrolling is undoubtedly addictive. The amygdala-striatal system of the brain creates the desire for more when it reinforces behavior that we find enjoyable. Professor Wouter van den Bos of the University of Amsterdam claims that social media platforms are similar to an addictive slot machine. "The main factor that makes it so addictive is the variation in rewards. Similar to slot machines, swiping gives you a sense of agencyit's like you have control over the feed, despite the fact that an algorithm is fully controlling you.

Why do teenagers have such a vulnerability?

Partly due to the immaturity of their brains. Compared to the impulsive amygdala-striatal circuits, the prefrontal cortex, a source of self-control that enables adults to resist the need for another dopamine rush, develops much more slowly. One factor contributing to teenagers' increased risk-taking is the order in which their brains develop. Additionally, adolescents are far more preoccupied with their social standing and the opinions of their peers. With features like "likes" and Snapchat "streaks," social media platforms gamify and quantify that impulse, which has a bigger impact on teens' moods than on adults'. "You must have seen the most recent memes, interact with all group apps, and so forth. Van den Bos says, "That means you just have to be online all the time. In the past, teenagers would "go home and have a break from these dynamics."

It never ends now. Additionally, their social brain is "overheating," which has a negative effect on their mental and academic well-being.

Is there concrete proof of how smartphones affect mental health?

Researchers at Oxford University, under the direction of John Gallacher, a professor of cognitive health, are conducting one of the biggest studies on the mental health of teenagers. Approximately 60% of 16 to 18-year-olds in the UK spent two to four hours a day on social media, and there is a strong correlation between this amount of time and poor mental health. According to the most extreme reports, youths were using these websites for as much as eight hours every day. The top five most popular platforms were YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and WhatsApp, and girls report more mental health problems than boys.

Do you know of any other research on smartphone use?

According to a widely reported Norwegian study by Sara Abrahamsson, prohibiting smartphone use in secondary schools clearly improves student grades, particularly for girls, and also reduces bullying. A randomised controlled trial that followed 17,000 students in higher education for three years was recently completed in India. It was determined that the weakest students benefited the most from the small but noticeable improvement in grades that came from classroom phone bans. The Economist claims that the evidence is "not overwhelming" at this time. Overall, though, schools that haven't implemented bans yet ought to give them some thought. After all, the majority of educational interventions only slightly raise attainment levels. Before reaching a final conclusion, scientists can afford to wait for the evidence to improve. Teachers are unable to.