It’s Still Demoralizing to Teach a Classroom of Scrolling Students (Emily Oster)

“Emily Oster is the founder and chief executive of ParentData and a professor of economics at Brown University.” This article appeared in The New York Times, May 10, 2026 In the past several years, about three dozen states have instituted phone bans in schools, and more are likely to follow. These bans have been trumpeted as game changers. Anecdotal reporting points to more books being checked out from school libraries and more students engaging with one another in the hallway. “How the Phone Ban Saved High School,” reads one headline. At the same time, respected academics have suggested that the arrival of phones in schools is linked to large test score declines in countries around the world. It was, therefore, surprising to many people when a paper this week showed that phone bans had a very minimal impact on student behavior and academics in a nationwide sample of schools. Phone usage went down, and teachers liked the policy (all good), but test scores didn’t change much,…