“Cellphone bans are not a silver bullet,” said David Figlio, an economist at the University of Rochester and one of the study’s co-authors. “But they seem to be helping kids. They’re attending school more, and they’re performing a bit better on tests.”
The study, “The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida,” is a draft working paper and has not been peer-reviewed. It was slated to be circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Oct. 20 and the authors shared a draft with me in advance. Figlio and his co-author Umut Özek at RAND believe it is the first study to show a causal connection between cellphone bans and learning rather than just a correlation.