Should schools ban phones? 🏫 📵😭

Hello!

This week’s episode is on a pretty divisive topic: Should cell phones be banned in schools? I came into this one pretty firmly in the “Absolutely, without question” camp. Matter of fact, just ban phones everywhere while we’re at it. But after diving into it, this issue isn’t as cut-and-dry as I first thought.

Many people want to ban this.

(Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts & more, YouTube)

We spoke to people on each side of this issue, and they both made really compelling arguments. Sabine Polak is a co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, and heading up the case against bans is Keri Rodrigues, co-founder and president of the National Parents Union.

Take a listen and let us know what you think in the comments below. I’m very curious to see how things play out as more and more of these policies go into effect. Below I’ll link to some of the research cited in the episode.

Sources and other links:

• Pew Research Center: What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?

• National Parents Union: Parent poll, released September 2024

• Louis-Philippe Beland & Richard Murphy: Ill Communication: Technology, distraction & student performance (2016)

• Pilar Beneito & Óscar Vicente-Chirivella: Banning mobile phones in schools: evidence from regional-level policies in Spain (2022)

• Victoria A. Goodyear et al.: School phone policies and their association with mental wellbeing, phone use, and social media use (2025)¹

If you like what you’ve heard, please give us a five-star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, and throw us a follow on Instagram, X fka Twitter, and/or TikTok.

Have an argument you want us to weigh in on? Shoot us an email at mannynoahdevan@gmail.com.

See you next week!

1. In interest of transparency: Jonathan Haidt (

After Babel

), a major advocate for the bans, has shared a lengthy rebuttal to this study you can find here.